


don't read the last page (but i stay when you're lost and i'm scared and you're turning away)

by loodins



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Magical Realism, Precognition, Psychic Abilities, Temporary Amnesia, Warnings in End Notes, fluff and angst/angst and fluff blah blah blah, no-nonsense mo, protective matt martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-07 08:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14077179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loodins/pseuds/loodins
Summary: He’s nine when he sees Auston for the first time.His mom sits him down so he can recount his vision for her to write down. She copies down the first part and then asks, “what’s his name?”“I’uh’no,” Mitch shrugs. “They were talking about hockey practice. He said he played for two teams that day. I want to do that.”“No,” his mom shoots him down. He pouts. “Anything else?”“Not really.”She finishes writing, and then grabs a new post-it note, labels it Arizona Boy.It all spirals from there.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> If you or anyone you know or are associated with are mentioned in this please, please turn away. This is a completely fictional piece. Real names and people and even events are used, but plot of this is 100% fictional. 
> 
> IT’S FINALLY DONE. This is the first ever Mitch/Auston fic I started. According to the Word Document, I started this July 24, 2017 at 02:43 in the morning. Obviously I took… quite the break from it (multiple, actually), but I returned to it randomly over time, and it is finally finished. I’m so glad to be rid of it lmao. Not actually, because I do love it, but—it was such a pain. Some parts got out of hand (I had one plan and it went in a completely different direction. literally), and there will likely be parts that are rushed, towards the end I probably got lazy (I like to think I didn’t but I’ll admit I probably did. For your sake I hope I didn’t) or just couldn’t figure out how to tie in what I wanted to (there are a few deleted scenes) but. I think overall it turned out pretty good! If you want to see the one line that prompted this whole thing, it'll be in the end notes of the epilogue chapter!
> 
> Minor spoiler, but in terms of how the aforementioned psychic ability is written: this fic does contain visions throughout, but they are not stylized uniquely, as I wanted to show they simply blend in with his day to day life-- they're not anything incredible like Raven in That's So Raven gets where she stares off. I hope I described them well enough that you can recognize them. If not, let me know and I will go through and stylize them differently. 
> 
> Title from New Years Day by T Swift because one fic with a lyric from that song isn’t enough for me apparently. 
> 
> Warnings at the end, as always! 
> 
> This is not beta’d, like always. Any and all mistakes are my own.

Mitch sees Auston coming long before the rest of the world does.

**;

Mitch doesn’t know anyone else like him. He—he doesn’t know anyone else _remotely_ like him, and it scares him. He sees fakes all the time. He thinks, once, he finds one on the internet when he’s searching for psychics and she has her own page, but when he messages her to talk and she responds asking him if he’d like to communicate with his dead grandma (both his grandmas are alive, thanks though), he backs away quickly.

Maybe he’d find someone if he looked harder. Sometimes it makes him feel special, but it scares him more than anything else.

He doesn’t know when it starts, but the first time he _distinctly_ remembers it happening is when he is seven. He is staring out the window on the way to his hockey game, and he sees himself breaking away from everyone else, shooting, and scoring. He doesn’t know what clairvoyance is then, but he knows that when he scores, it is exactly what he had seen himself doing earlier.

“Mom I’m _psychic_ ,” he tells her that night, retelling the story of his vision and subsequent goal.

His mom rolls her eyes and ruffles his hair and tells him that if day dreaming scores him goals, she’ll stop bugging him so much in the car on the way to games.

It keeps happening (sometimes days or weeks in advanced), and she keeps teasing him, until she doesn’t.

“I don’t wanna play today’s game,” Mitch cries, tears falling from his shining blue eyes. His mom reaches down and pets his hair. “I’m gonna hurt my leg if I play,” he tells her. He is eight years old. He wants to keep playing, and he can’t do that if he is hurt.

“Why do you say that?”

“I saw it happen,” he whimpers, “I was on the ice and someone fell on me.”

“Mitchy, sweetie,” she coos, “you’re not going to get hurt, you’re just imaging things.”

He sniffles and nods at her, reassured by her words.

Six minutes into the game, one of his teammates knocks into him, sending him falling to the ice. As he tries to get up, a player from the opposing team skates into him, trips, and falls hard onto Mitch’s leg. Mitch cries out in pain, pushing the body _off, off, off, please get off_ , he begs silently, until adult hands pull the other body away.

He has to be helped off the ice and is given a knee brace and crutches at the ER for a hyper extended knee.

Mitch’s mom tucks him into bed that night for the first time since he was five, and purses her lips as she looks down at him. He frowns. “Mom? Did… did I do something wrong?”

Her eyes widen. “Oh, sweetie, no,” she rushes to tell him. “But can you tell me more about what you see when you’re day dreaming?”

“Thought you said I was imagining things,” he mutters, staring at his hyperextended knee though it was covered with his blankets.

His mom has the decency to look regretful. “I did,” she admits, “but I may have been wrong.”

**;

From there, they develop a system. Everytime Mitch has a vision, he tells his mom about it and she writes it down. His dad starts working with him on controlling his ability. His brother calls him a super hero. But they don’t tell anyone. They don’t tell his grandparents, they don’t tell his aunts or uncles, they don’t tell his cousins, and he’s not allowed to tell his friends.

His mom buys a lock box. She puts the notebook of visions in the lock box every night, and then tapes the key behind the TV. His dad asks if she thinks she’s being a little too paranoid, but she shrugs and tells him that she’d rather be safe than have anyone who shouldn’t know about Mitch _know_ about Mitch and about his visions. He overhears her, and asks why.

She smiles, but her face looks sad. It confuses Mitch. “Oh, Mitch,” she coos, and runs her fingers through his hair, “you’re so special. If people knew, they’d want to be friends with you for all the wrong reasons.”

“But I want lots of friends,” Mitch tells her.

She shakes her head. “They’ll be mean to you, or take advantage of you, like bullies.”

He scrunches his nose. “Those don’t sound like friends.”

“That’s what they’ll call themselves,” she says. “That’s why we don’t tell anyone about your visions.”

And then—he’s nine, when he sees Austin for the first time.

His mom sits him down so he can tell her the vision and it just—

“He had a—weird nose. He called the guy dad! The guy wasn’t bald, but he wasn’t not bald. Oh, they were at a rink, but they were leaving! But it was _really_ hot, but it was _winter break_ , Mom!”

“Do you have any idea where they are?”

Mitch frowns. “His shirt says ‘Arizona.’”

“That explains it, then. That’s a desert. It doesn’t get cold there.”

Mitch scrunches his nose up. “Ew.”

Mitch’s mom laughs. “What else happened?”

Mitch thinks. “They were getting in a car. He plays baseball, too. He was going to baseball practice.”

“What’s his name?”

“I’uh’no,” Mitch shrugs. “They were talking about practice. He said he played for two teams that day. _I_ want to do that.”

“No,” his mom shoots him down. He pouts. “Anything else?”

“Not really.”

She finishes writing, and then grabs a new post-it note, labels it _Arizona Boy_.

It all spirals from there.

**;

So his dad decides to train him. Asks him to block out hockey for a week. Asks him to block out family for three months. And then directs him—asks him to look for this person, for that date, for this thing. Mitch becomes better at it, but he still can’t pinpoint visions that come to him randomly. He also chooses not to go looking unless he’s working with his dad.

So like. He doesn’t look for Austin. He really _doesn’t_. But it doesn’t stop him from seeing him. _All the time_.

As he grows up, he grows with Austin. He has so many visions of Austin, his mom discusses of buying a notebook to dedicate solely to Austin, but Mitch doesn’t want to separate his visions. So they keep tabbing them, keep going until Mitch decides to start writing his visions himself. He’s 11 now, he can do this.

So, at 11, when he sees himself being drafted by the London Knights, he doesn’t have to tell anyone immediately, he can wait until he can use it to his advantage.

That comes one day when his dad is upset with a loss. They’re doing some filming thing—hockey parents, and his dad asks Mitch what he’s going to tell his mom. Mitch can’t answer with the cameras around, but—well. He obviously knows what he’s going to tell her.

So when they get home and the crew has left, his dad turns to him. “Well, anything you’d like to tell her?”

Mitch lifts his chin up. “I’m going to play for the London Knights.”

His dad’s face falls, and his mom’s face lights up. “Mitch that’s wonderful!”

He grins. “I know,” he says.

His dad, slowly catching up, nods. “Good job, kid.” He leaves the room then. His mom asks him all about his vision though, and Mitch is more than happy to tell her all about it.

“This doesn’t mean you can slack of in any of your classes, you know,” she tells him very seriously.

“I know,” he says, which he didn’t know. He’s going to play hockey.

“In fact, I want to see those grades go up, Mitchell.”

“But—“

“Nope,” his mom says. “You already saw yourself on the Knights. You’ll get there.”

He huffs, but stomps up the steps to do his homework that he had been putting off all weekend.

**;

Time goes on and Aust _in_ becomes Aust _on_.

It’s not until 2015, his draft year (which, he’s already known he was going to be a Leaf for a year and a half anyways) when noise starts picking up about Matthews and Mitch sees his name and his picture that he puts it together, but holy shit is he fucking _stoked_.

It’s only finally one night at dinner that they’re talking about him on SportsNet that his mom brings him up.

“Auston,” she says, apropros to this.

Mitch looks up from his chicken and raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

She raises an eyebrow back. “You know, you… may be too young to remember, Mitchell, but when you were _younger_ you kept talking about a boy from Arizona—“

“I remember.” How could he forget?

“I wrote down almost all of your visions for you until you were 11, Mitch. No one showed up more than the kid with the weird nose, or the kid in the heat, or _Austin_ ,” she says. “And _now_ , there’s a boy who is going to be drafted this year. Who has a unique nose, who grew up in the desert, and is named Auston. Do you know anything about this?”

Mitch is about to answer her when Auston bumps against him as he takes a seat. Mitch is looking up at a score board. It’s 3-2 early in the second period against the Senators, Leafs are up. Auston is looking up at the board beside him, watching a replay of himself wristing the puck in. “Low glove,” he tells Mitch.

Mitch smiles when he blinks and his mom is in front of him again. “Maybe.”

His mom narrows her eyes. “I have a feeling Leafs fans are going to be very happy for years to come, eh?”

He turns to watch the TV again without answering his mom.

**;

For the next year, Mitch listens to people rave about Auston, at one point pause about Auston and rave about Patrik Laine, and then rave about him some more. They’re all surprised by him, all intrigued by him, all want to know more about him.

So, yeah, Mitch sees Auston coming before the rest of the world.


	2. Don't Read The Last Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And—the thing is, Mitch has never truly questioned why he had his gift, power, ability, whatever it should be called. His mom, once she believed him, called him special. His brother thought he was a super hero. His dad—well, his dad just cared about his hockey visions, but he loved that Mitch could see all of it. And, well, no one else had known. So, Mitch loved being able to see the future, because it made him special, and he was a super hero, and it made his dad proud of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is a lil delayed, I had to head to the ER for an infection in my central line last night. :( 
> 
> Here's the main part! Only the epilogue to go. 
> 
> Warnings were at the bottom of last chapter. Sometimes things are weird and they get put at the bottom of both chapters, but if you do go looking for the warnings in this chapter, be careful, because I write a lot of stuff in the end notes about this fic (there will be more after the epilogue lmao) and I don't want it ruining anything. I know the warnings can be a lil specific and you might be able to guess some stuff from those, but like. I'd rather be too specific than not specific enough. I've had panic attacks because of untagged stuff in other fandoms, and don't like reading some stuff if I'm in certain moods so-- I just don't want to make anyone upset or trigger anyone or anything of the sort.

Auston and Mitch get on just as well in real life as they do in his visions, and it’s immediate. They meet at prospect camp in July and Auston makes a joke in the locker room before a scrimmage that has Mitch laughing so surprised he inhales a full Skittle down his throat. Auston spends the next thirty seconds pounding a hand on Mitch’s back and like, he’s probably going to bruise, but he can breathe again without difficulty, so that’s nice.

Auston looks at Mitch with raised eyebrows and a smirk. “You good?”

“No thanks to you.”

“I just _saved your life!_ ” he protests.

Mitch rolls his eyes and tosses another Skittle in his mouth and cocks an eyebrow. “Put it in danger first, didn’t you?”

Auston lets his head fall back and laughs, short. “I think you’re the one to watch out for.”

A flash of a relatively empty practice rink blinds Auston from Mitch, but then Mitch looks and sees him there. He passes the puck to Auston. Auston shoots the puck and it goes wide. It crashes into a pane of glass and the glass shatters. Mitch lets out a loud laugh and Auston raises a hand up, as if he is a king acknowledging his subjects.

In the same second, Mitch is back in the present. He smirks at Auston. “We’ll see about that, eh?”

“ _Eh?_ ” Auston pokes back, and then Mitch is shoving at him, and Auston is pushing back, and Mitch’s Skittles spill into his stall and—

It’s everything he could’ve hoped for.

**;

Auston moves in to train in August. The nice thing about Toronto is even if you get sent down, you still stick around Toronto. Auston uses that as his reasoning, anyways, when he talks to Mitch and Mo, but, well. No one is sending him down.

Mitch thankfully already knows he’s staying up, but he doesn’t want to seem cocky, so he goes apartment hunting and tells the guys he’ll rent it out for the year if he goes back to the Knights. Auston gives him a boost of confidence by snorting at that—as if Mitch going back to the Knights is as ridiculous as Auston going to the Marlies, or back to Zurich, or whatever his plan was, but like. Even though Mitch knows he’s going to make it, he’s flattered.

Training with Mo and Auston is nice. Mitch has gotten to know Mo since he was drafted, and adding Matts in makes Mitch feel on more even ground—he’s not alone in not knowing what the fuck is going on anymore. (In fact, he has a slight upper hand now.)

Well, like, at least until Mo walks over and shakes Auston’s hand and then nods at Mitch. “Who let the little kid in the gym?”

Auston shrugs. “He followed in behind me. He looks a little thin, I don’t know if he can’t find his parents or—“

“ _Ha fucking ha_ ,” Mitch deadpans. He walks over and fake sneezes, squeezing his water bottle so it squirts in both their faces. “Oh! Oh, my god, I’m _so_ sorry—here, let me—“

Auston lunges for him, and Mo drops his bag, and Mitch runs.

It’s a good month of training with them honestly, and he puts on even more weight than he already had (so take that Mr. “He looks a little thin” Matthews”). Auston comes back to Mitch’s mom’s house more often than not, so he puts on some weight too, which maybe isn’t needed, but probably won’t hurt him either, Mitch figures. Just—his mom makes good food. Like, good-tasty _and_ good-healthy, so no one can chew them out anyways. They’re being responsible.

Training camp is a new experience—it’s a new level for Mitch, and even Auston, who despite playing professional hockey last year, is still jumping up to a new level. Mitch is laying in bed the first night after camp, thinking back to the shattered glass and Matts’ subsequent bashfulness. He grins, and lets his mind zone in on his friend’s face, and just lets his mind wander.

He sees Auston hunched over on a couch that Mitch recognizes from past visions, but the room surrounding it is much more bare. Auston looks up at him and sighs. “Yeah,” he says, obviously in response to something Mitch said. “My dad has to stay another two weeks in Arizona.” He sounds upset, and Mitch—he doesn’t really know how to deal with this. Even when he was in London he was never more than a few hours away from his family, really. But—Matts is an entire plane ride away. And Mitch had a billet family, and school to keep him busy. Auston… doesn’t.

He blinks, and he’s back in the moment. Auston’s dad is here with him now and will be fore a while, but he’s supposed to be flying back with his mom after their home opener to collect some more things and visit with Auston’s sisters. Mitch sets an event reminder in his phone to check up on Auston around that time.

**;

In Auston’s absence, Mitch makes new friends—most notably, Marty. Marty clings to Mitch, and Mitch clings to Marty, and it’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship. (Meanwhile, Mitch feels like his relationship with most of the other guys is more—of the other one, where he benefits, but they don’t, but like, also don’t get hurt. Google says it’s called commensalism but Mitch is like 55% sure he never learned about that. Sometimes the guys cling to him and he thinks otherwise, but then there’s another comment about how much he is and he’s just not sure, really.)

He has countless visions, as always, most about his teammates. He thinks only a few are imminent. Brownie has been complaining of issues with his girl, and Mitch sees him sitting in some locker room after a practice—sees him scowling at his phone before he stands up and starts taking his gear off. It doesn’t seem too far away. Then there’s another—Zach, practically falling asleep at practice. He sees Willy sneaking off, hands shaking. He sees more, less worrisome ones, like sitting at the dining room table in Marty’s home eating bacon barbecue burgers, or holding Bozie’s kid for the first time he thinks, but… he’s not curious about those. He’s not going to be watching for those.

By the time Auston comes back from the World Cup, Mitch guides him through the introductions when they step on ice for practice, being Auston’s self-proclaimed best friend. Marty huffs about that, but then Naz makes a comment about Mitch being enough that they’re going to each want breaks from him anyways. Mitch only gets to be offended for a second before Auston shoves a hand in his face to face-wash him, and then Mitch is offended for a whole different reason. Auston cackles and shoves Mitch’s face away and then skates away. Mitch skates after him and—

He feels Auston tackle him from behind, and feels the ice press through his jacket. He flips on to his back and looks up at Auston who is beaming down at him—his eyes are bright and warm, colored perfect by the sun. He has wrinkles next to his eyes, and his hair is short, shorter than Mitch has ever seen it before. He wouldn’t be surprised if Auston was in his late twenties, maybe even his thirties. But he just—looks so _happy_ , and Mitch’s heart feels so full.

His eyes refocus and he’s not even an inch further than he was when his vision started, but the view of the ice stretching in front of him still shocks him and he stumbles. The team laughs at him and Auston skates over, creating a spray of snow to cover Mitch’s shoulders. He’s laughing, but his eyes are also creased with concern. “You good, dude?”

Mitch has been working every practice on blocking out all of his visions—he doesn’t want to be distracted from the game for even a moment, but the Auston visions never seem to take a break. Or, well. They slow down, but—he needs to get _better_. He’ll have to start focusing on blocking Auston out alone, and then add everything else in later.

He nods up at his friend and climbs to his feet. Babcock steps on the ice then and it’s time to start, so everything else is tabled—for now.

**;

Mitch watches as Brownie pulls his phone from his bag. He sits up straighter as Brownie’s eyes furrow together. His eyes skim his phone before he stands up and tosses it in the back of his locker and rips the velcro on his shoulder pads straight down. Mitch jumps up and rushes out of his gear. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Auston eying him in confusion, trying to keep up, but, well—

Brownie heads out without taking a shower, which, fair, the showers here suck and there’s actually decent water pressure at the hotel, but. “Brownie!” Mitch calls.

Brownie spins around, frowning, lines wrinkled on his forehead. They smooth out when he sees Mitch. “Hey, Marns.”

“Hey,” Mitch nods. “I thought I was gonna be the first one out of there,” he jokes. “Showers at the hotel are so fucking nice.”

The other man laughs. “Yeah?”

“Fuck yeah, man,” he smiles. He lets the smile drop, acting. “Are you okay?”

He reaches up and scratches the back of his head. He opens his mouth, and then closes it and sighs. He laughs. “Yeah, dude. Just so fucking tired. Can’t believe the season is almost here.”

Mitch nods. They’re at the bus now. They both climb up the steps and take seats near each other. “Just tonight left,” Mitch agrees.

Brownie hums, and takes his phone out. He scowls again, and then shoves it back in his bag. Mitch scrolls through his own phone and pretends he wasn’t looking. Mitch thinks, goes through his brain for something semi-helpful. Brownie likes cats more than dogs—he goes to Instagram and pulls up the explore page and searches for the first cat post he comes across. “ _Dude,_ ” he croons, when he finds one, not even playing it up. “Look at this.”

He holds the phone out to Brownie, whose eyes light up.

“ _Dude_ ,” he echoes. “I want fifty.”

Mitch lets out a surprised laugh. “Not sure that would be the best idea with our schedule, bud.”

“I’ll bring them all with us.”

“Alright,” Mitch says, “I’m down.”

Brownie grins, genuine. Mitch smiles back and feels his shoulders release some tension he didn’t realize he was holding. “Hey, I have my laptop, and I have Netflix, Too Cute is on there, you should come over and watch it before our naps. We can totally skip the parts when they go to their new homes.”

“What’s Too Cute?”

Mitch huffs out a laugh. “Oh my god you’re going to love me.”

(Brownie does end up loving him.

When they’re closing Mitch’s laptop, Brownie stands up to leave. He looks back at Mitch. “Hey. Uh—thanks.”

“For what?”

Brownie raises a single eyebrow at him and then lets out a small laugh, shaking his head. He turns and walks out of the room. When Zach comes back in the room for his nap, Mitch is already under the covers, smiling to himself. He nods at him in greeting, turns over, and sleeps soundlessly.)

**;

Mitch watches from the bench as Auston scores, and then scores again, and then—

He looks up at the clock when Matts and Willy start making their way to the Sens zone. He starts laughing before it actually happens because there’s _no_ way—

Before it goes in, Mitch murmurs to himself, _low glove_. He grins at Auston when he takes a seat a minute later. He looks up at the scoreboard.

**;

He heads over Auston’s the day before their game against the Lightning. He recognizes the scene immediately as he enters the apartment even though the reminder in his phone isn’t set to go off until tomorrow. Without a second’s hesitation he’s asking, “dude, you okay?”

Auston looks up at him. “Yeah,” he says. Pauses. Grimaces. “My dad has to stay another two weeks in Arizona.”

Mitch is just as at a loss now as he was back in September. He slips his shoes off and walks towards his friend. “I’m sorry. Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” Auston says, quick. “There was some trouble with his company, and we knew it might happen, they warned him about it, but I still don’t know how to make dinner,” Auston jokes.

“Dude, same.” Mitch drops on to the couch. “Hey, come over my parents with me tonight. Mom has been talking about how you should come over anyways, she misses you—“

“No—“

“Yeah, Matts, come on.”

“Mitch—“

“Please? Like, I was only a few hours away from my family, but even having a fake one helped me.”

“I don’t need _help_ , I need _food_.”

Mitch frowns. “Okay, but like, that’s still, like. You still need help to get food.”

Auston opens his mouth and then closes it with an audible click and scowls. He shoves himself off the couch. “What’s for dinner?”

Mitch’s mom doesn’t mind at all—simply beams when she sees Auston follow behind Mitch into the kitchen. “Auston,” she greets. She drops her tongs that she was using to dish out something that looks like spinach salad and walks over to hug him. He hugs her back easily. “So good to see you. Dinner?”

“Yeah,” he nods.

Mitch’s mom nods. “We’re having burgers, nothing fancy—you’re not staying over?”

Mitch cuts in. “He can borrow some stuff if he does. I still have a lot of stuff I never bothered packing up.”

Auston scrunches up his face. “Will it fit?”

His mom laughs right along with Auston and Mitch has always heard to surround himself with positive people, so he turns on his heel and leaves the room, since there clearly aren’t any in the room. When his mom asks where he’s going he tells her just that. He ignores the way Auston’s laughter gets louder.

**;

His mom stacks him with premade meals when he goes to leave the next morning, so they have to leave an hour earlier so they can stop at both of their apartments. Then Auston just tells Mitch to leave the food in his apartment for practice and they stop at Auston’s so he can change and grab his stuff. They’re at the rink an hour before practice—long before anyone else. Auston crowds into Mitch’s locker and sits with him, queuing up an episode of The Office on his phone.

Half way through the episode, the door crashes open. Both of them bolt up, and Willy’s head snaps over to them, startled. He nods at them, and then moves over to the other end of the locker room, where almost no one ever leaves. His hands are flapping at his sides. Auston relaxes back into the locker, but Mitch doesn’t.

Mitch pats Auston’s knee twice. “I’ll be right back. Willy looks like he’s on a caffeine high or something,” he tries to joke. He thinks the joke and his voice fall short. “I’m gonna go see if he needs a drink.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just gets up and moves to the door. Thankfully, this is a pretty straight hallway with a lot of locked doors (hence so few people going here), so Mitch finds him pretty quick. He’s just around a corner about 30 feet from the locker room, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled to his chest. His head is resting on his knees.

“Hey,” Mitch says.

Willy jumps and his legs splay out in front of him. “Jesus Christ,” he breathes. He glances up at Mitch. “Hi.”

And, well. This is the part that Mitch never thinks about, because like, he sucks at this. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing—“

“ _Willy_ ,” he cuts him off. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I know,” Willy says. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Mitch says. He sits in front of Willy and crosses his feet under him. “What can I do to help, then?”

“Marns, you don’t have to.”

“Yeah I do. At the very least I want to.”

Willy smiles. It’s small, but Mitch accepts it. “I just—think I messed something up with someone.”

“Hoooo, buddy, have I got experience with that.”

Willy laughs, open and pure. “I just—really liked them. And I don’t know why I finally decided to do something _now_ —and then I just left them when they started stammering and like— _not_ kissing me back, and not stammering in an ‘I really like you’ way I get around them that makes me feel like I’m a fucking idiot. And it was shitty of me, but. I didn’t want to hear it.”

Mitch knocks Willy’s knee with his knuckles. “You’ll be fine. You’ll both be fine.”

At least, if this is what Mitch thinks is happening.

Willy sighs. “Well, ‘ve gotta be okay for the game, yeah?”

“No,” Mitch says. “You’ve gotta be okay for yourself. Take some time out here. You need any water?”

Willy smiles at him. “No.”

“Okay. Matts is probably pouting in there now. Text me if you need something, okay?”

“Thanks, Marns.”

“Anytime, Will.”

Mitch rounds the corner, and Auston is leaning up against the door to the locker room. His eyebrows are high on his face and Mitch grimaces. When they’re back in the locker room, Auston pokes Mitch. “I was not _pouting_.”

“Yeah, because you were too busy playing hide and seek.”

“Fuck off,” Auston chuckles, “I wanted to make sure he was okay. Sounded like you had it handled. I didn’t have faith.”

“Oof, _Matty_ ,” Mitch groans, clutching his heart dramatically. “Hurts, man.”

“ _Mitchy_ ,” Auston tosses back, and wrestles him back into his locker. Mitch squawks as he falls on to his seat and then gasps as Auston lands in his lap, forcing the air from his chest. It’s a mess of limbs from there, and they both wind up on the floor when Mo walks in.

“Hey!” he calls. “Get up before you break something!”

They do, giving him sheepish looks.

They figure its time to start getting ready, so Auston turns to his locker. He looks back to Mitch first. “I didn’t even catch on to that.”

Mitch shrugs. “He just looked pent up.”

“Yeah, but you’re good at that. Brownie said you helped when his girl dumped him.”

“Oh, come _on_ , you can’t say you didn’t notice that.”

“I didn’t,” Auston admits. “None of us did. You were literally the only one who followed him out. Anyways,” he redirects, “thanks for helping Will out.”

Mitch waves Auston off. “Don’t fucking thank me, dude. He’s my friend.”

“Still,” he says. “You did good.”

Mitch rolls his eyes. “Get the fuck away from me.”

Auston huffs playfully and rolls his eyes back, and soon after, more players filter in. Willy comes back in shortly after and focuses intently on his gear. Mitch casts one glance over and Zach who is staring at Willy, no attempts made to hide it.

Mitch smiles.

They’ll be okay.

**;

Mitch isn’t surprised when his vision of Zach nodding off at practice happens the next day. Willy looks wide awake, but Zach has dark circles under his eyes and literally falls asleep in his stall. His eyes are puffy like he’s been crying. Mitch stays close to him on the ice and bumps him when he drifts off. Each time, Zach sends him a grateful nod paired with a sniffle.

It’s something Mitch can’t figure out, since Zach and Willy never meet up for more than a greeting and they’re talking like normal and Zach doesn’t budge when Mitch tries to lighten the mood, but—at least Babs doesn’t chew Zach out.

**;

Zach’s dog died early yesterday morning and he was up all night saying good bye.

Mitch feels like an idiot the entire day after and texts him to apologize for acting like an idiot, and then send his condolences and say that he’s there for anything he needs.

Zach asks him why he feels like an idiot and Mitch just tells him the simple ‘I didn’t know’ to which Zach points out that, well, Mitch _didn’t know_. Zach doesn’t need to listen to Mitch’s dumbfuckery when he’s just lost a fucking dog, even though Mitch _could have_ or like… _should have_ known. He wants to cuss out his visions for leaving that detail out, but then he’d just be cussing himself out, and that doesn’t sound fun.

Instead, he turns to Auston to complain about his problems.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” Mitch moans.

“Yeah,” Auston agrees, “but not about this.”

“Yes I am. But like, not about anything else.”

“I think you’re confused,” he teases. “You didn’t know, Mitch.”

“He was just so _sad_.”

“Yeah, that happens when your dog dies.”

“See?! So I _should have_ known it was his dog!”

Auston groans. “It also happens when you get rejected, or someone gets sick, or you’re just not happy.”

“But—“

“Mitchy,” Auston huffs, “it’s fine. Nothing was going to make him happy. He was so tired he didn’t even realize you were _trying_ to cheer him up. Or you might just be like, really bad at it—“

“Hey—“

“Point is, there isn’t anything for you to even feel like an idiot about.”

“Yeah,” Mitch relents. He looks at Auston, and then away. He jumps up and puts on a fake cheery voice that he knows Auston sees right through. “Isn’t going to stop me.”

Auston sighs. He reaches forward to grab Mitch’s hand and Mitch freezes in his place to look back at Auston. Auston looks up at him and smiles, and squeezes his hand.

Mitch feels Auston taking his hand, squeezing tighter, but Mitch can’t tell who he’s trying to comfort. It seems like Auston is clinging, the way he’s pressed close against Mitch’s back. Mitch is looking out at a sea of faces—Willy is cuddled in Zach’s lap on the love seat Marty sitting beside them. Fred and Mo and Gards are sitting on one side of the angled couch, while JVR and Bozie are sitting with… Patrick Marleau. Someone else is sitting in a recliner. They all focus on Mitch while Auston squeezes his hand once more.

He blinks and looks down and back, finds Auston staring at him. Auston’s eyes are wide and kind and Mitch just—can’t even focus on that right now.

_Patrick Marleau?_

And who was the other man? Mitch knows he has seen him before—he looks familiar, but he can’t place a name with him. A back up goalie, perhaps, or an AHL call up?

Mitch’s first thought was maybe he had been about to tell them that he and Auston were dating—but they were all looking at him. And Auston was hiding behind him. He wouldn’t want to make Auston uncomfortable and tell anyone before he was ready. But why were they holding hands? Comfort? Or was Auston shy about relationships?

 _Fuck_ Mitch hates vague visions.

He works to put it out of his mind and squeezes Auston’s hand back, and then slips his own from Auston’s grasp. He walks away and leaves Auston on his couch—he’s just… overwhelmed right now.

_Why the fuck is Patrick Marleau there?_

**;

His question is answered soon in that Marleau starts popping up in his visions… quite frequently, really. He, his wife, and his sons. Mitch doesn’t know too much about him because he’s a Shark and Mitch has always been a Leafs fan, but… Mitch never thought the guy would be anything _but_ a Shark.

Not to mention, he was drafted like… shortly after Mitch was _born_. And before Auston even _was_ born. And yet—he keeps seeing him, always with Auston and Mitch.

Mitch pulls up the guy’s Wikipedia page and frowns. That’s, like, a lot of records. Yeah, Mitch wants to be friends with him, and play cards with him, and go to his house for dinner, and take fancy bottles of wine over. But it’s just a little intimidating, is all.

“What do you think of Marleau?” Mitch decides to ask Auston one evening when they’re at Auston’s place and his dad is locked away in his office. They ordered Chinese because Auston’s favorite cheat meal is Chinese, unless his mom is in town, and Auston freezes.

“Patrick Marleau?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s… good?”

“Yeah? Do you think he’s like, a good dude? Fun dude?”

“Yeah? I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say here,” he admits. “Why?”

“Just curious,” he admits.

Auston chuckles. “You’re curious about some weird shit, man.”

Mitch shrugs. “You’re boring company. The mind tends to wander.”

Auston scowls, Mitch laughs. It’s just another night, but Mitch kind of might see where Auston is coming from, and puts Patrick Marleau out of his mind for now.

**;

They play the Oilers at the end of November and Mitch gets to see Connor. Sure, they’re not the closest friends despite what the media made it out to look like at the draft, but they’re friendly, and it’s always nice to see him and catch up.

The Oilers are having _a season_ , even better than the Leafs, and a lot of it is thanks to Connor. Mitch is glad, but Connor also looks exhausted, and he hates that he can’t help with that.

He has started seeing someone new, he excitedly tells Mitch. “And she’s great,” he gushes. “She didn’t even laugh when I told her about my old man crush on Gretzky.”

“ _Dude_ ,” Mitch snorts and chokes at the same time. “Why would you tell her that?”

Connor gets that dumb grin on his face and shrugs. “I’m in to her. I’m not going to withhold anything from her. If she doesn’t like it, we probably shouldn’t be dating. Like, everyone knows it’s a hockey thing, not a love thing.” Connor pauses and looks at Mitch. “You—she doesn’t think I’m like, actually in to him?”

Mitch throws his head back and laughs.

**;

Mitch wants to date Auston.

Mitch has wanted to date Auston since he realized boys dating boys was something that happened.

Meeting Auston in real life and outside of his visions has not helped that want.

He’s not so sure he can follow Connor’s lifestyle and, uh, not withhold anything, but like, he knows he shouldn’t. He knows that he’s all in on this with Auston, and that Auston is going to be in his life for a long time. He’s _seen it_.

So he should tell Auston. He really needs to. He wants to.

He’s not really sure how.

**;

They get back from their western Canada road trip in the early morning hours. Mitch means to ask Auston to come over the next day, but he’s too tired, and he ends up forgetting. When he wakes up, he goes to text him and his hands are shaking. He puts his phone down and picks it back up at least ten times.

He goes into the notes app on his phone and starts up a draft to send to Auston, and ends up settling simply on “ _chill tmmrw at mine?_ ” (He probably didn’t need the notes app for that.)

He copies the text and pastes it in the text conversation. It takes another fifteen minutes to hit send, and when he does finally do it, it’s on accident. He throws his phone to the end of the couch. He’s judging himself, which—admittedly happens a lot.

It vibrates, and it’s a simple thumbs up emoji from Auston.

Yeah, he wishes he was that chill.

**;

Practice goes by fast the next day, but Mitch thinks that might just be because he’s so focused on Auston thinking about after practice.

They stop for food on the way to his house, and Mitch suggests they eat out. Auston cocks an eyebrow at him but agrees, and Mitch gains an hour and fifteen minutes more time to figure out what to say. How to say it.

But when they get to Mitch’s place, he hasn’t figured it out. He got too caught up in talking with Auston at lunch and didn’t actually get to think too much about how he would tell Auston, so as soon as they’re inside, Mitch just feels—wrong. He feels like he’s buzzing—he’s ready for this and yet _not_ at the same time, and like, he knows putting it off won’t make it any easier. So he wants to just band-aid this shit and rip it off, but—

“ _Mitchy_ ,” Auston yells, and Mitch’s head snaps to him. Auston is staring at him with wide eyes. “What the fuck is happening right now?”

“What? What’s happening?” Mitch asks, but it comes out too fast, too not chill to be chill.

“Mitch, are you okay?”

He shuts his eyes, clenches them and scrunches up his face—readying himself for the pain, for the hair to be ripped out, for the fucking band-aid to come off.

“I’m psy—I’m cl—I…” Mitch frowns, struggling to find the best word to use, the least ridiculous sounding and most believable. He’s like, never actually said this out loud before? It’s nerve wracking.

“Marns,” says Auston as his eyebrows furrow together, “what’s going on?”

Mitch stares at Auston, and struggles to find words. He opens and closes his mouth again and again. Auston leans forward in his seat, looking increasingly worried. Mitch sighs. He focuses, and looks at the TV. “Matts,” he says, forcing his voice to be steady and serious. “Watch the TV. I’m going to turn it on and they’re going to be showing highlights from the Habs game last night.”

Auston opens his mouth to respond, but Mitch holds up his hand and presses the power button.

“—and Stastny to Schwartz— _score!_ Blues have tied it all up at two with just under half a period left.”

“Okay.”

Mitch looks at Auston and frowns.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Auston admits helplessly.

Mitch searches for something, anything. “Tomorrow at practice, Freddie is gonna knock the goal off when Gards gets a breakaway.” Mitch knows that it’s tomorrow because it’s an afternoon practice according to the clocks, so it’s not game day, but there’s still Wild positioning plays up for them to study behind where Babs is standing.

“What do you mean?”

Mitch lets out a guttural groan. “I know stuff. Like. _Future_ stuff.” He motions to the TV.

Narrowing his eyes, Auston looks to the TV where the NHL Network has moved on to Preds highlights. He turns back to Mitch. “That’s a coincidence,” he tells Mitch evenly.

“Fred and Gards.”

“That’s not going to happen, Mitch. Gards will literally never get or take a break away.”

Mitch throws his hands up. “Fucking _stay there_ ,” he snaps, and shoves himself off the couch. He stomps to his room—he’s not ashamed to be acting like a child even if he looks like an idiot, _Auston_ will realize that _he’s_ the idiot soon enough—and opens his closet. He takes down his lockbox from the top shelf of his closet and brings it into the living room, grabbing his keys on the way.

Auston watches him as he moves back into the room, takes a seat next to Auston, and then begins to try to unlock the box. “Marns—“

“Just—fucking _hold on_.” He can’t get the key in the fucking hole. He doesn’t know why. It won’t go.

“But Marns—“

“ _Matts_ —“

“Can you just calm dow—“

Mitch fumbles the key in the lock and twists his body to face Auston. “ _Would you stop?_ ” Mitch wails. “I’m trying to fucking _show you_ what I mean, since you don’t fucking trust me, and—“ He realizes his hands are shaking. “I just—need to unlock this, but fucking—“ he holds his hands up. Auston watches as they tremble in front of him.

Auston sighs. “Which key?”

Mitch blinks. He sniffles, hands the keys over and then wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “The one with the yellow rubber around the edges.”

Auston looks wary, but he moves to pick up the keys anyway and searches for the right one. When he finds it, he slips it in the keyhole and turns it. Before he lifts the lid, he looks at Mitch. “This better fucking be worth it. So far, this prank is for shit.”

“ _Prank_ ,” Mitch breathes in disbelief, though he’s not sure how he’d react if someone told him they had some sort of power that people weren’t actually supposed to have (if he didn’t have one himself, anyways). “Open the damn box, Matts.”

Auston stares at him for a moment too long, but then does as Mitch says.

From the look on Auston’s face, he’s probably finding it a bit anticlimactic. It’s just—notebooks. Piles of them, all with post it note tabs sticking out of the side. Some loose sheets of paper here and there. Mitch knows he doesn’t understand, but—he will.

Mitch scoots over so their knees bump together, and takes out the pile of notebooks on the left. He goes straight for the bottom one. It’s the oldest—he was eight and nine and he thinks maybe even ten. The pages have barely a hint of a yellow tint to them now, but they’re still in tact. He scans the post its along the side. Skips over _Arizona Boy 1, Arizona Boy 2, Arizona Boy 3_. Then he lands on it.

 _Austin_.

He flips to the page and then hands it to Auston wordlessly.

It’s—he remembers it happening, is the thing. Putting a name to the face.

He glances over at the page, written in his mother’s neat scrawl, and reads.

_‘2006-07-24._

_Name of Arizona boy: Austin._

_Mitch saw him in a USA sweater with teammates, older (Mitch thinks World Juniors Age (15-20), could not say). Other names: “Z” (weird eyebrows), “Coons” (nice eyebrows), and another boy not named (“he had eyebrows but not like the others. His kind of were the same color of his face”). At hockey practice. Z called him Austin. They were talking about Cheetos vs Funyuns. Austin, Z, and nameless prefer funyuns, Coons prefers cheetos.’_

Another entry is below.

_‘2006-07-28_

_Austin._

_Playing with McDonald’s socks, questionable age, but significantly older. Mitch says he’s good at hockey.’_

Another.

_‘2006-08-16_

_Austin._

_Mitch saw Auston’s parents take him out for steak when the u-17 National team was announced. Age must be around 15 or 16._

_Mitch sees me taking him for ice cream when he’s announced to u-17.’_

Mitch snorts at that, knowing he and his mom knew it was total bullshit, and whatever trance Auston was in, he’s snapped out of it. His head snaps up to Mitch, eyes wide and—scared.

“How the _fuck_ did you know my parents took me for steak?”

“Psychic.”

Auston shakes his head and tosses the book on the table. “How did you know about the fight my sister had with my parents about Zurich?”

Mitch hadn’t gotten that far, but he can recall the vision, vaguely. “Psychic.”

“ _Mitch_ ,” Auston demands. “ _How did you know?_ ”

“I fucking _told_ you,” Mitch huffs. “Look through every one of those books. Everything that I’ve seen, I’ve written down. The only visions I haven’t written down are the ones I don’t want to remember or don’t want written down. Sometimes, like, the small stuff I don’t bother, because I see so much small stuff like a stranger messing with their phone in a restaurant when my order gets called, but like… significant stuff, or recurring people, or—”

“ _Mitch—_ “

“ _Matts—_ “

Auston looks panicked, and then shakes his head and stands up. “Fuck you,” he snaps. “ _Fuck_ this, you’re an asshole, whatever.”

He’s slamming the door to Mitch’s apartment moments later.

The TV is too loud.

**;

Mitch skates slow on ice the next day, clinging to Marty and Reemer and Mo. He knows Marty has realized that something is wrong by now, but he doesn’t push, just lets Mitch linger while Mo and Reems form a protective barrier. He wants to roll his eyes but, like, honestly? He really loves them right now.

And then—they start a scrimmage. Blue versus white. Mitch and Auston are on the same team, so they’re not out against each other, and Willy is on their team too, so Mitch isn’t out with Auston, either.

It goes smoothly for the first few shifts. Mitch scores on Freddie, tallying his team’s only goal, and jumps at Naz and Gards gleefully, as if he scored an overtime winner.

It’s only a few shifts after that goal that his déjà vu hits. He sees Reemer and Bozie go for a pass from the bottom of one circle to another. Willy’s stick is there to deflect it back, almost directly on to Gards’ tape, who takes his chance. He races down the ice, and—Mitch _wants_ to close his eyes and not watch, but—really, he’s at an advantage. Freddie and Gards are going to be okay and he’s the only one that knows.

Gards dangles the puck just as he blows a tire a few feet in front of Freddie and goes tumbling in to the goalie, who slams into the outside post, effectively dislodging the net.

Everyone jumps into action. The players who had been on the ice are already at Freddie’s side once Gards brushes them off, and Freddie is sitting up. Mitch hops over the boards, slower than his other teammates—because he doesn’t need to talk to Fred right now to be assured—and skates over slowly.

He bumps Jake on his way in and jokes, “this is why we don’t give you break away chances.”

His friend rolls his eyes and elbows him, and then moves to get a drink.

Mitch looks back to Freddie, watching the scene, but—

Auston isn’t. Auston is watching Mitch, and his eyes are dark and angry and Mitch freezes under his stare.

He waits until Freddie is standing again to make his way over, ignoring Auston completely to bump his helmet to Fred’s. “You’re good,” he says, and he means it as a question, but it doesn’t come out as one. He _needs_ it to be true, _needs_ to not be wrong on this.

Freddie smiles from behind his mask. “Yeah I am, Marns.”

Mitch grins, and skates away. He feels Auston’s eyes on his back the entire way.

**;

Auston had driven that day (it was a silent drive for the most part) but—Mitch couldn’t ride home in that car now. He had never seen a glare like Auston’s directed at him before, and—well.

He launches himself off the ground and on to Marty’s back. “Wanna see Jax,” he demands. Marty laughs and shoves a hand in Mitch’s face but ultimately agrees, and then agrees to tell Auston while Mitch goes to shower.

He only feels kind of bad that he’s that good at manipulating Marty.

**;

He spends hours with Marty, Syd, and Jax—has the dinner with them that he’d had his vision of back in September, and then Marty drives him back home later in the evening. He’s walking from the visitors parking to his building when he hears footsteps behind him.

“Hey!”

Mitch tenses.

“ _You’re a fucking asshole_ ,” Auston seethes, coming up behind Mitch.

Mitch turns to face him. “Have you been waiting in this parking lot for three hours for me?” Auston’s eyes go dark again, and Mitch takes a step back. “Dude—“

“Fucking. Don’t.” Auston growls. “You’re a fucking asshole, who fucking couldn’t do shit—you told me about this _yesterday_ and couldn’t bother to stop it from happening. Too busy looking in at the private details of other peoples’ lives to give a single fuck about if your friend got hurt or not? For what? To prove a point to me? To show me you’re fucking _superhuman?_ You’re not—you’re—fucked up, holy fuck. You are so, _so_ , fucked, Mitchell. You have fucking diaries about other people and stuff you _shouldn’t_ know, and you can’t even— _won’t_ even help someone out when you can—“

“ _Hey—_ “

“Shut the fuck up,” Auston spits. “You shouldn’t be able to do what you do. And its weird and messed up and fucking awful that you can. And like, I have no idea what kind of a person you can be if you can do that and I _don’t_ want to deal with—whatever it is you can do. Leave me the fuck out of it. Keep it away from me. Don’t look for me, or whatever you do. Stay the fuck away.”

“Excuse me?“

“Fuck off,” he says, and turns. Mitch—wants to chase after him. It’s not supposed to go like this. There’s so much he hasn’t seen happen yet—so much of him and Auston that still has to happen. He’s not supposed to be able to change the future. So, he wants to go after him. But, well—

He doesn’t.

**;

Over the next couple of weeks, Mitch works to block Auston out. It’s a lot harder than he thought it would be. Sometimes, when he’s thinking about Auston, he’ll get a sharp, stabbing pain in the side of his head that will make his vision go white. He thinks it’s the trade off for not seeing a vision that he’s meant to see.

And—the thing is, Mitch has never truly questioned why he had his gift, power, ability, whatever it should be called. His mom, once she believed him, called him special. His brother thought he was a super hero. His dad—well, his dad just cared about his hockey visions, but he loved that Mitch could see all of it. And, well, no one else had known. So, Mitch loved being able to see the future, because it made him special, and he was a super hero, and it made his dad proud of him.

But when Mitch told Auston, the reaction had not been—nice. Mitch had known he couldn’t let himself look and see how it would turn out—it was a decision he had to make on his own. There had been plenty of those over the years. His decisions still shape his own future, and he wasn’t going to let what he saw define his present actions. (He… regrets that choice for once, honestly.)

Mitch has been going back and forth since the night he told Auston about _why_ he has this ability, and what good it is. Auston was right—he should be able to stop things from happening, that’s what he thought the ability was _for_ , until—well.

He just. There’s no point to this.

There isn’t, he realizes, in that he can’t help anyone with it and he can’t stop anything. He can just—see things happen twice. And he only sees things happen twice if he’s actually a _part_ of his vision, which is common, but not guaranteed. So—yeah. Auston is right. He’s fucked up. He invades people’s personal lives and sees his own future for no actual reason.

He doesn’t feel so special anymore.

**;

Since the argument, Marty and Mo have been clinging to Mitch. Marty, Mitch understands. Marty is Mitch’s best friend and it’s no secret that he’s upset, but almost a month and a half after Mitch and Auston stopped interacting, Mitch finally asks Mo about it.

Mo stares down at his breakfast and picks at it, then shrugs. “You’ve protected this team. I figure the least I can do is protect you.”

“What?”

Mo looks up at Mitch through his eyelashes. He lifts his head up. “You can’t be serious?”

(Mitch is serious.)

“Mitchy, you helped Brownie through a break up, Willy through an anxiety attack, Zach the day after his childhood dog died, Gards with the wedding planning, you always offer to watch Bozie’s son when he needs it. You’re always there. Even when my parents called to say they couldn’t make it for Christmas you just—I didn’t even tell anyone, and you just zoned in on me. No one else even knew anything was wrong. You just—have an uncanny ability to know when someone needs you. I don’t have that ability, but right now I know you need me anyways.”

“That’s not—“ he huffs. “I care about people, I notice things,” Mitch tells him. “I’d rather you were around me because you care about me.” He pushes away from the table and grabs his plate. He dumps what’s left over in the trash and heads to the elevator.

“ _Mitch—_ “ Mo groans, running after him. He leaves his plate at the table, which is probably the most irresponsible thing Mitch has ever seen him do. “I do care—and so does everyone else. But you asked why I was never with Auston. You—god, I don’t even know? You look sad, or scared, or let down every time you see him?” Yeah, that probably sums it up, Mitch thinks. “I just—I don’t know what happened. But I do care about you. I always have. And I want to be there for you.”

“That’s not necessary. I’m fine.”

Mo snorts. “Sure.”

“Go clean up your breakfast, Morgan. Thank you, though. I’m fine. Really, Rielly. You can still hang out with Auston and care about me.”

“But you’re _scare_ —“

“I’ve gotta pack,” Mitch cuts him off. “Tell Marty I’m sorry I had to go.”

Mo looks like he wants to say something, but he nods. As he turns away, Mitch moves towards the elevator. He loads on and presses the button to his floor, and watches at the doors begin to close. Auston walks past his eye line in the dining room and glances over, catching Mitch’s eye.

And then Mitch collides with someone, tumbling to the ice, and he can’t feel it, but he knows something is wrong with his shoulder. He looks up and sees the Leafs away jerseys skating around the Blue Jackets third jerseys. He shoves himself off the ice and grimaces and skates straight to the bench. Seth Jones gives him a quick tap with his stick as he goes and he just—exhales when he gets on the bench. His entire side burns. He speaks a few words with the trainers and then they’re pointing him down the tunnel. He goes.

He blinks, and Auston is still staring at him with dark, unreadable eyes, just as the elevator doors close.

**;

They have him take a picture with Auston that afternoon.

Or, well.

It’s Bell Let’s Talk or whatever, and they put him next to Auston for the picture. He’d be more than happy to take the picture no matter what, he’s just, like, less enthused that he can literally feel Auston’s hatred rolling off of him. As soon as they’re done, he skates away. His face is red in the picture, and he doesn’t want to post it, but also, like. He was to support everyone, okay? He can’t do much more than tweet a picture and make a donation, but he can do that much, so that much he will do.

Marty trails behind and then they go out and crush the Wings. Mitch doesn’t really contribute much, but. He’ll take it.

They go on and drop three games, pick up a win, drop a game in overtime, another win, another overtime, a regulation loss, an absolute ass kicking of the Islanders and then—

He saw that the Blue Jackets were wearing their third jerseys tonight, and he almost doesn’t want to play. But like, it doesn’t work like that now. He can’t sit out a game in the NHL like he used to midgets, so he suits up and tries not to think too much about it.

“Jesus Christ, Mitchy,” Marty laughs, tapping Mitch’s shins with his stick. “Who pissed in your Skittles?”

Mitch pulls a face. “Ew.”

“What’s up, kid?”

Mitch looks around. Everyone is hovering—they’re nearly ready to get on the ice for the game and Mitch just… knows this is his last game for a while. He should probably more excited than upset, knowing it’s the last time he gets to play, but… he just is sad.

“Nothing,” he says, and bumps into Marty. “I’m fine,” he grins, and bumps against Marty.

He’s almost certain that he saw Auston side eyeing him, but—that’s how things go.

**;

It’s a lot of back and forth after he goes down, more than Mitch initially realized, before they ultimately pull him. He hadn’t even realized he’d have a chance to come back in the game. He’s okay with it—it had to happen eventually, and he’ll take a minor shoulder injury over something much bigger that he’s already seen happen to Auston a year or two down the line—none of which he can stop no matter how much he wishes he could.

He’s getting ready for bed when Willy texts him. They have a late afternoon flight tomorrow so no one is being rushed, and most guys are staying up or going out since they don’t have practice or a game.

 _Matty is out, come watch movies with me and Hymie_. _:)_ Willy’s text reads. Mitch looks around the room. He feels too wound up for bed anyways and would probably just lie there for an hour, so he’s quick to make a decision.

 _be there in 5_.

Willy sends back a thumbs up and a shower head. Mitch isn’t sure if Willy is getting in the shower, or if Willy wants Mitch to take a shower, but Mitch isn’t going to, so he’s not going to bother responding.

He gathers up his laptop and charger, throws on a hoodie, and heads down to Willy’s room. When he knocks, Zach opens the door, and the shower is running. He nods at Hymie and movies to Willy’s bed, leaving a wide berth around Auston’s. Zach narrows his eyes. “It’s been two months and you won’t even sit on his bed?”

“He wouldn’t want me to. I’m respecting that.”

Zach watches him move past Willy’s bed and Zach’s face goes up in flames. Mitch rolls his eyes and moves to the desk, sitting in the chair.

He opens his computer and types in his password, and then looks back to Zach. “Holy shit, Hyms, I don’t care, okay? Congrats, you had sex—you’re probably gonna cuddle the entire movie and Willy is going to play with your hair even though clearly you should be playing with his.”

“Listen to the man, babe,” Willy says, walking into the room and shutting the bathroom door behind him. The shower is still running, and Willy’s hair is completely dry.

Mitch hates when he doesn’t see things coming.

He reaches forward and slams his laptop shut, gathering it in his arms, and moving towards the door. Willy and Hymie are quicker, and block his path.

“Sorry, bro,” Willy shrugs. “Team decision. Otherwise I’d be exceedingly curious about how you figured that out.”

Mitch narrows his eyes. “The team decided for you to trap Matts and I in the same room.”

Hymie grimaces. “They put… a group of us in charge of figuring your shit out. We’ve been trying for two weeks now. This is literally Plan K.”

“ _Fuck off_ ,” Mitch snaps, ignoring the urge to chirp Zach for knowing what plan they were on, and shoves past them. He gets to the door, pulls it open and—

“Sorry, Mouse,” Marty grins. “Not today.”

Freddie, Mo, and Gards are lined up next to him. Mitch knows when to accept the L.

He sulks back towards the computer chair, and lets the door fall closed behind him. It’s a short-lived temper-tantrum, because only a minute or two later, the shower cuts off and his anger turns to stone cold fear. He doesn’t want to do this.

Correction: he really, really can _not_ do this.

He stares at the table in front of him, gripping the wood just on the wrong side of too hard, and his arms are shaking. He thinks he feels someone touch his arm—or his neck, or his chest. He thinks he hears someone talking. Vaguely, he can make out what he thinks might be his name, and then “Marty.” He—the name Marty feels comfortable, so he clings to that, while he searches for something else to hold on to.

Scenes flash by—he’s not sure what he’s seeing. A man with a wide jaw on one knee in front of a blonde woman. He thinks it’s Marty. It’s—he knows it’s Marty. He searches further. He sees the back of a head, standing across from the same woman—they’re at a wedding, and it’s—it’s Marty’s bride. Marty leans forward to kiss her and then turns and throws and arm around someone—around the person who is looking at him—around the person who is standing next to him—around _Mitch_ —beaming.

Marty shows up again. This time, the woman is nowhere to be found. Marty is dressed in a hockey uniform, screaming Mitch’s name. “ _Playoffs, fuck yeah!_ ” he turns away and screams “ _Mac, you did it, fuck yeah!”_

Again—shoving a smelling salt in Mitch’s face.

Again—screaming his name in excitement after a goal.

And then—“ _open your eyes_.”

Right in his face, calling Mitch’s name, holding on to his forearms from where he’s crouched in front of him.

“Let me go,” he whispers. Marty drops Mitch’s forearms immediately. Mitch shakes his head. “No—I need—out.”

Mitch feels tears spring to his eyes—it’s too late. The bathroom door opens and Auston steps out in a towel and nothing else. He’s staring at the ground and when he looks up, his face goes blank. He twists and walks towards the door. In a towel.

Freddie, Mo, and Gards stop him before he can go anywhere, but Marty—he’s fucking _seething_. “No,” he calls. His voice sounds calm. Mitch knows he’s not. “Let him go. If he wants to fucking humiliate himself fucking _let him_.”

Auston’s eyes turn angry at that. He stands straighter, and moves to his bag, followed by the three that were waiting outside the door. “You know what, _no_. This is my room, he can get out.” He pulls on a pair of boxers underneath the towel.

Willy—loving, drama free, Willy—steps out from behind his bed. “It’s my room, too. I invited him here.”

Auston snorts. “Well don’t.”

Five things happen almost all at once.

Mo, in his best captain voice, says “ _Auston_.”

Willy, in his best bro voice, says “ _dude_.”

Hymie, confused, takes a step to block Mitch.

Freddie, clearly unsure of what is about to happen, takes a step forward, separating the distance between Auston and Marty.

And Marty, finally losing his last grain of calm, storms over towards Auston. “ _What_ the _fuck_ is wrong with you?” he screams, just as Freddie intercepts him to keep him from reaching Auston. “What the _fuck_ is up with you—what the _fuck_ is your—“

“Why don’t you fucking ask _Mitch?_ ” Auston retorts. “Or is he to perfect to do anything wrong? Is he too good to do any bad?” he asks, mocking.

Marty and Auston go back and forth, and Mitch doesn’t hear any of it because Mitch, he—he—he feels too hot, and his ears start ringing, and he tastes iron in his mouth and he just needs—

“Hyms,” he murmurs.

His voice goes unheard.

“Hymie,” he tries again.

He can’t get enough behind his voice.

“ _Zach_ ,” he chokes out, starting to feel his panic well up in his chest.

It doesn’t get Hymie’s attention, but Willy’s head snaps to him. He’s in front of him in the next second, shoving Zach out of the way. Zach whirls around, gaining Gards and Mo’s attentions, who ask what is wrong and then the rest of the room silences. “What’s up?” Willy asks, voice loud in the now quiet room, but sounding calm and collected. Mitch is grateful for that much.

“Out,” he says.

“Yeah,” Willy nods. “Yeah, buddy, yeah, we’ll get you out of here.”

He helps Mitch up, and Mitch takes a few shaky steps with his help before realizing it isn’t going to work.

“Can’t move,” Mitch says, or more likely slurs. He feels his butt land on a something soft and firm and hears someone say something, but then his vision starts dancing black, and he feels _so_ hot, and he can’t fucking move, he can’t—

He can’t really do anything.

**;

He wakes up not knowing where he is, not knowing who he’s with, and—confused.

He remembers nothing—except the constant stream of Austin running through his head. Older now, in a Leafs jersey. In sweats in a kitchen with stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops. On a plane, murmuring to Mitch that Mitch was going to be fine while Mitch’s entire right side burned. In the dark—a trashcan and a case of water bottles next to him, squinting as he watches the Leafs game from his couch, alone.

Vision after vision—it feels like hundreds, even though it can’t possibly be. He’s overwhelmed—it’s like a data dump that he doesn’t have enough space for, and he—just wants it to stop.

And then he wakes up to screaming.

Loud screaming.

“—did you _fucking_ do to him?” The voice is going to yell itself hoarse.

“ _I don’t know!_ ” This voice is already hoarse.

“The fuck you don’t know,” the first voice continues.

“I told you I didn’t!” the second voice rasps. “He fucking—“

“He’s _terrified_ of you and you fucking hate him. Why would we ever think he was the one who caused this?”

Mitch tries to open his eyes.

Something shifts to his—one side—and a third voice speaks up. “Guys,” it says, voice firm. “Mitchy.”

Mitch tries to open his eyes again. He does, and furrows his eyebrows. There’s—more than three people here.

“Mitchy,” one of them says—he has a boyish face and the perfect balance of intensity and kindness in his eyes. “Mitchy, you good?”

“Whr’m I?”

“Our hotel, we’re in Columbus.”

“’hio?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Why th’ f’ck_ ,” he mumbles, turning on to his side and shoving his face into his pillow.

“Gards went to get Babs, we called an ambulance.” That doesn’t answer why he’s in fucking _Ohio_.

Mitch frowns and looks up from the pillow. “Who?”

“Gards?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause and then—

“Yeah, Gards?” a new man asks, big and broad with bright red hair. His eyebrows are drawn together, like he’s trying to figure something out. “Or yeah, who is Gards?”

“Who?”

The room is quiet for a beat and then—

“Who am I?” the red head asks.

Mitch frowns. “Y’u’re… v’ry red.”

A new voice, someone with a big nose sitting next to someone with bright blond hair from Mitch’s other side asks, “Mitchy, what year is it?”

“’14.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” the second voice Mitch heard cusses, and the rest of the room suddenly feels a lot tenser. But Mitch looks at him and it’s just—

The person moves and kicks the bed across from Mitch and—

“’rizona. _Aus-_ tin.”

The man looks up.

“Seen you,” Mitch tells him.

Austin nods. “I know, Marns.” His voice is much deeper than the visions, and it sounds like he’s sick.

“Is this the US program?” Mitch looks around. His eyes land on—someone. “No—you’re too old. Coach?”

The man scowls. “No.” His voice is the first one Mitch had heard.

Mitch looks around again. “You’re all too old.” He spots a blond. “’Scept maybe you?” He freezes. His eyes track back and then widen. “Morgan Rielly?”

The guy who didn’t know the year that was next to the blond stands up. “I’m gonna intercept Gards and Babs. Tell them what’s going on.”

Mitch’s eyes get wider. “Is Gards _Jake Gardiner?_ ”

No one answers him, but Nose gets up and leaves in a rush.

He feels well enough, so he sits up, and pushes himself back against the headboard. He looks back to the blond, who is staring at him with a frown. “You okay?”

He pulls a face, and does not look okay. “Yeah, Mitchy, I’m—“

“Wait,” Mitch stops him.

“Okay.”

“We just drafted you.”

“Sure.”

“Nylander.”

“Yeah, bud.”

“Why are there _Leafs_.” He asks, but it’s more of a demand—he’s, like, so confused. He pauses, and remembers a vision. Austin in a Leaf uniform. Mitch beside him. His head snaps to Austin. “You’re a Leaf now.” After a nod, Mitch looks to the other two. “You guys?”

The one with the big jaw nods. “Yeah, Mitchy.”

“Me, too?”

“Yeah, Mouse.”

Mitch grins, even though he knew this would happen one day. Still it’s-- different. “ _Whoa_. Am I good?”

“The best,” Austin says, and he sounds completely serious.

Mitch furrows his eyebrows. “Did not see that coming.”

In the next moment, the door is opening and three people are coming in, and Austin falls back onto the bed he’s on, cackling. He sits back up, now sporting a bright red face and glossy eyes. Mitch is grinning wide, proud, but everyone else is staring at Austin like he shouldn’t have laughed. Well. Mitch didn’t _mean_ for it to be funny, but it’s so different to see someone so carefree in person than in a vision. Mitch—really likes it. _He’s_ not upset about it.

Jaw glares down at Austin. “What the _fuck_ —“

“I _swear_ ,” Austin says, holding his hands up in front of his chest. He looks defensive, but still has a wide, mirth-filled grin on his face. “That _was_ a joke. Like—an inside joke. I’m not—“

“He hasn’t been an asshole about this, he wouldn’t,” Red tells Jaw. “He’s fine.”

Jaw tenses his jaw, but nods anyways.

And then—fucking Mike Babcock steps out.

“Holy shit.”

Babcock raises an eyebrow. “Hiya, Mitchy.”

“Okay, so if we’re all Leafs here—“ he frowns. “Hi Coach?”

Babcock nods, and Mitch wants to scream.

“Holy shit.”

“Mitchy,” Babcock says, in a Coach, capital C voice, because he’s his fucking _coach_ , “the ambulance is arriving right now to get you. We’re going to call your parents, but Marty is your emergency contact on the team. Do you need him to go with you?”

“Marty?”

Babcock frowns, and Jaw shifts next to the bed. “Me.”

“Oh,” Mitch says, kind of surprised. If he had chosen anyone to be his emergency contact, he would have probably chosen Austin, he thinks. He’s practically known him since he was eight. Though the same can’t be said for Austin. Maybe—maybe Mitch had been wrong. Maybe his constant visions of this kid hadn’t meant that he was going to be a big part of Mitch’s life. Maybe he’s just a teammate.

Mitch, if nothing else, trusts himself though. If he put down Marty for a contact, he knows that even if he doesn’t know him right now, he can trust him. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

The mood in the room is bland—like no one really knows what to do. Mitch wants to change that, but for once, he feels at a loss. He either can’t or shouldn’t—he’s not sure which one right now, but. He doesn’t like it.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take much longer for the EMTs to get there. They roll in a stretcher, and Mitch frowns. “I can _walk_.”

“After a seizure, we’d much rather patients didn’t push themselves, especially for a first occurrence,” one of the EMTs tells him.

“Seizure?”

Jaw— _Marty_ puts a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah. Just use the fucking thing, Mitch.”

Mitch trusts him—or like, he trusts that he trusts him—, so he nods.

It’s a blur of events from there. When he’s placed on the stretcher and wheeled out of the room, guys are lining the hall. He looks at all of them and recognizes some, but not all of them. He sees Tyler Bozak, James van Riemsdyk, and a few others he thinks look familiar, but he can’t place. Others are just completely new faces and he feels infinitely guilty as he sees the fear and worry etched into their features. They clearly care for him, and he doesn’t even know their fucking names.

He looks down at his hands as he passes—embarrassment and shame flooding over him. He settles in as they wheel him down to the waiting ambulance where Marty crawls in the back with him.

“This is fucking weird,” Mitch says, not knowing what else to say.

Marty scowls. “Yeah, it is. You’ll be fine, though.”

Mitch doesn’t miss the reassuring tone in Marty’s voice, but it sounds forced. He wonders who Marty is trying to convince.

**;

He wakes up slowly. He’s not quite sleeping, but he’s not fully aware. He’s balanced blissfully on the edge of consciousness and unconsciousness.

It rains. Drops land on him—sliding along the span of his skin. His skin soaks them in, like a sponge. He feels—revitalized, somehow.

He can’t figure out why, but—he accepts it.

“You can’t just suddenly care now that you put him in the hospital.”

He didn’t know he wasn’t alone.

“I didn’t _stop_ caring.”

Someone snorts. “Yeah, sure.”

“You don’t fucking _know_ what happened. You don’t know what he did to me, or does to everyone else. I’m not happy about it. But _fuck_ you for thinking that I ever wanted him hurt or in a fucking hospital bed.”

“What the fuck do you _mean_ ‘what he does to everyone else’?” The voice is angry. Mitch wants to reach out and soothe them—maybe calm both of the voices down, but _fuck_ he’s tired.

Someone sniffs. “It’s not my place to say.”

“Oh, wow, you’re not an asshole only when it’s convenient for you. How convenient.”

“Fuck you. I’m getting food.”

The other person snorts, and Mitch wants to reach out to them, but he can’t yet. He’s still teetering, and it’s—he’s waiting. For something… He thinks, anyways.

But then an ache goes though his head and he doesn’t want to wait for anything anymore. “Shit, my head hurts,” he moans.

There’s a scuffling noise from next to him. “Mitchy?”

He cracks an eye. “Marty?” He feels more rain dripping down his skin. “Oh _fuck_ , Marty. Sorry.”

“What? What, Mitchy?”

“I forgot you.”

There’s a beat of silence and then, “do you remember me now?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Marty says, and Mitch opens his eyes. “I’m going to call in the doctors, okay?”

Mitch nods, and then Marty pushes a button next to his bed. A couple minutes later, someone’s voice starts speaking right next to his head. He jumps.

“Can I help you?”

“Mitch is awake and has memory back, we were wondering if we could get a doctor or nurse in here.”

“I’ll send them in straight away.”

“Thank you,” Mitch tells the voice.

They go through basic questions, nodding at him with each one. Marty grins throughout, so Mitch knows he’s doing well.

“Okay,” the doctor says after Mitch answers how old he is. “What year is it?”

“2016.” Marty’s grin falters, Mitch knows he—doesn’t have it all back.

“Okay,” the doctor says evenly. “What month?”

“November,” he answers, this time warily.

The doctor nods. “Okay, who was the last team you played?”

“Penguins. We lost 4-1.”

“And where are you?”

Mitch frowns. He knows this, but—it doesn’t make sense. “Columbus.” He frowns. “Oh, fuck.”

The doctor looks up from his folder. “No, you’re good. You’re still creating and storing new memories, which is great, and shows everything is fine. And some seizure patients can take some time to recover their memories if they’ve been lost. Give it a few more days, Mr. Marner. Seizures are tricky things; it’s not even been a full day. You’re doing very well.”

He does a few physical exams and then takes his leave. Mitch turns to Marty.

“ _Fuck_ , kid, don’t scare me like that.”

Mitch frowns. “I’m sorry.” He turns on his side. “What happened?”

“You started getting really stressed, and then you just—couldn’t talk, or walk. Willy got you on the bed, and then you just—had a seizure. Hymie knew what do to, started timing it and everything. I guess we absolutely had to call the ambulance—you were in it for a good two or three minutes and then out for another minute or two. _God,_ you scared me.”

Mitch reaches for him and lets his hand drop on Marty’s arm. “I’m _sorry_ , okay?”

“Don’t be fucking be sorry,” he rolls his eyes. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Oh,” Mitch says. “Okay. I’ll get right on that.” He takes his hand back and turns onto his back again.

Marty grins and laughs, and leans forward until his elbows are propped on the bed. “Syd says feel better, your mom says feel better and she loves you, same with your dad and brother but your mom is… a lot more insistent and um—pestering, I guess.”

“Oh god,” Mitch huffs. “She’s going to be insufferable.”

“She _already is_ ,” Marty teases. “She texts me for updates every 30 minutes. She’s great though. It’s gotta be scary to have this happen out of the blue and for us to tell her to stay put, we’re bringing you home in two days.”

“My mom might almost be worse,” Auston says as he walks in the room. He pulls out his phone. “She’s been texting me non stop since I told her where I was.”

“Aw,” Mitch grins. “ _Ema_.”

Auston’s head snaps up. Marty looks at him. “Mitch has his memory up until November back,” he explains pointedly, and Mitch really wants to know what that’s about. “Nothing from December, or January, or February.”

Auston relaxes his posture slightly. “That’s great, Marns,” he nods.

Marty rolls his eyes and falls back in his chair. Auston rolls his eyes back and throws a wrapped sandwich at Marty. “I hope you like sriracha, asshole.”

Marty picks up the sandwich. “Love it, thanks.”

Auston drops into the seat and tears into his sandwich’s wrapping angrily. Mitch frowns.

“How much did I miss?”

“Just those three months,” Marty shrugs, back to acting like himself.

“Why do you guys hate each other?”

“You don’t need to worry about that right now, Mitch,” Auston says. “Just worry about getting the fuck out of here, please.”

And, well, Marty agrees with Auston on that, and honestly, Mitch does too.

Mo tracks in only a few minutes later and sits in the corner, rambling on about Jones, Murray, Jenner and Saad all sent well wishes to Mitch. Mitch hadn’t realized Team North America had created such strong friendships—strong enough to meet for fucking _brunch_ —, but Seth and Mo both seemed like chill dudes who could relax together without needing to be as close as Mitch was with Marty or Auston, and Mitch didn’t really know much about the others. Apparently Jenner wanted to visit to apologize, but honestly, it was more of Mitch’s fault than his. He told Mo this much who texted someone. They were hoping to leave by tomorrow morning anyways.

And anyways—he’s sleeping way too much right now.

It wouldn’t be worth it.

He’s too tired.

He can’t stay awake.

He just—

Needs sleep.

**;

Mitch remembers doing the ice bucket challenge. It’s the only thing he can compare this to. It’s not like the rain from earlier—it’s not even a downpour, it’s just—a tidal wave. It washes over him and makes his brain hurt.

It’s—it’s so much.

**;

He wakes up sore and with a pounding headache. He immediately wants to go back to sleep, but he feels restless right from the moment he gets to full consciousness. He just—needs to move. Wants to do something.

“Mitchy,” Auston’s voice says from his right. Mitch turns to look at him. His head throbs and he feels a spike of guilt in his gut.

“I didn’t mean to,” Mitch rushes to say. He turns onto his side, careful of his IV. He looks at Auston. Auston’s eyes are, for the first time in over two months, completely gentle when they look at Mitch.

“What, Mitchy? Have a seizure? Yeah, I’m pretty sure no one really means to,” Auston teases gently, like they’re best friends again.

Mitch shakes his head. “I blocked you. For two fucking months I blocked—everything. And then—I couldn’t when I—“

Auston takes a few seconds to understand but when he does—it’s awful. His face goes from gentle to closed off to angry to sad to _horrified_ in the span of less than ten seconds. And then he’s up and out of his chair, leaving the room. Mitch feels his heart squeeze and wills himself to not cry. He wanted to keep Auston beside him, but he could not lie to him. He deserved to know that Mitch wasn’t—isn’t?—strong enough.

It’s fair that he hates Mitch for it. He asked Mitch to do one thing, and Mitch couldn’t even follow through. He wishes he could have. He—they’re not close anymore, but Mitch still wants Auston to be happy. Wishes he could at least do the one thing he could’ve done to make Auston happy, or that kept him from being upset, rather.

Mitch hates what he does, hates who he is.

He curls up on his side and lets tears come. He doesn’t want to hurt or upset anyone—he didn’t want to do this to Auston. He just.

He wanted to be special. He _wanted_ to be a super hero. He wanted to be able to do everything that he can’t. And—he’s just.

Done with the future.

**;

Marty, Mo, and Auston are in his room late into the night, though their team has already left for Toronto. The nurse thinks Mitch will be discharged in the morning, so Mo asked about flying, and she had said that it was fine. He bought tickets for the next night so they’d have enough time to get to the airport, even if he got discharged later than anticipated.

Marty is talking—blabbering on about Jax, like he’s worried Mitch hasn’t gotten all of his memories back and he wants to remind him of Mitch’s favorite dog. Mitch doesn’t really have any complaints about seeing dog pictures and hearing dog stories, so he lets his friend ramble on.

In the middle of a story about Jax taking a dump in his training class, Auston coughs. Marty falters, continues to speak and—

“Don’t—block me out,” Auston says. He’s been sitting in the corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest and staring at his feet. He doesn’t look up when he speaks.

Marty clamps his mouth shut and whips around to glare at Auston, and Mo glances between Mitch and Auston like his eyes are following a tennis match.

Without looking at Mitch, Auston stands up, and leaves.

Mo shifts in his seat. His forehead is creased with worry and concern, and he doesn’t even hesitate before asking, “block him out?”

Mitch grimaces. “It’s a long story.”

“Mitchy,” Mo says seriously, “we just—we don’t want you two to be… whatever you’ve been. Neither of you are happy.”

“It’s fine, guys.”

“Why are you scared of him?” Marty demands.

Mitch scowls. “It’s fi—“

“ _No_ ,” Marty snaps. “No. It’s not fucking fine. It’s not fine with me. I’m not okay with it, what the fuck is going on? I gave you your fucking space, but you’re in the hospital. They said stress was a potential reason for your seizure. You’ve never had one before, you had no other symptoms, so unless you just—started having seizures, you’re laying in that bed because of Auston.”

Mitch sighs. “He got pissed and yelled,” he explains slowly. “He—looks terrifying when he’s upset. He said some things that upset me. But I did, too. Half of it is that I don’t want to relive what happened. I don’t want to upset him again. I don’t want him to be upset because of me.”

“ _Fuck_ him—“

“ _No_ ,” Mitch says. “He was right. You guys just—blindly sided with me. It—was both of us, but it wasn’t just him.”

“You didn’t scare him, or stress him to the point of unwellness.”

“No, but I hurt him, I think. We—didn’t talk. He just. Got mad and left me.”

Mo leans forward and puts a hand on Mitch’s shin. “What happened?”

Mitch shrugs. He’s coming to a point where he can decide to tell Marty, maybe even Mo, but, like. He doesn’t want to lose them, too. “I can’t say.”

“Why?” Marty demands.

Mitch stares down at his hands. “I just—I don’t want to lose you guys, too,” he admits in a pathetic whine.

Marty’s face goes soft. “I’m never gonna fuckin’ leave you, Marns.”

Mo leans forwards and rests his elbows on his knees. “We’re here for you, you know? Like, as long as it’s legal, we still love you, Mitch.”

“Even if it’s illegal,” Marty jumps in, and Mitch can’t stop a watery grin.

He takes a shaky breath and clasps his fingers together. “Hypothetically,” Mitch starts. “If like, I could see—like, tell—if I knew things were going to happen, like, before they happened?”

Mo blinks. “Hypothetically.”

Mitch clears his throat. “ _Hypothetically_ ,” he reiterates. “And I like—told him about that. And—proved it. And he thinks I purposefully let someone get hurt. When I didn’t.”

Marty falls back into his chair, and Mo’s eyes are narrow. “Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically,” he repeats. “And like. My track record of—trying to make the things I see different has had really bad consequences in the past.”

“Hypothetically.”

“ _Fucking_ hypothetically,” Marty snaps, turning to glare at Mo. Mitch can hear the anger welling up in his friend and he shrinks back into his bed. He—he’s in too deep now.

He coughs. “But also,” he begins, voice sheltered and soft, “not so hypothetically.”

Mo’s jaw is slack, and Marty turns from Mo to Mitch.

“Okay—so like—it just happens, and I can’t fucking stop it, and it has since I was a kid. My mom and I looked shit up for years but we haven’t found anyone else who can do this and I—I’ve been seeing Matts since he was a little kid—or since I was a little kid? both, I guess—and I thought like, that meant he was important, and so I wanted to tell him and it just… didn’t… go… well.”

“You’re saying you’re fucking psychic?” Mo flounders.

“Not r—“ Mitch pauses. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What the fuck, Mouse,” Marty says, his voice a harsh whisper and Mitch has an intense moment of fear, but like. This is Marty. “How would anyone be pissed about that?”

Mitch sits up. “I showed Auston some of my old visions. I write them all down—or, the ones that I think hold significance. He thought it was an invasion of privacy. And then I told him Gards was going to crash into Fred and he got mad because he thought I just—let it happen.” Mitch takes a shuddering breath. “I’ve tried to fix things before that I thought shouldn’t happen. I thought— _this must be why I’m like this_ , you know? But it always just happens anyways. The only thing I’ve ever changed is something I never wanted to change, and—I didn’t mean to.” He glances at the door where Auston went through, thinking of all the visions he’d had of them that’ll never play out. He looks back at Marty and Mo and grimaces. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he ends up whispering, “Sometimes worse things happen.”

“What do you mean?”

Mitch swallows around a growing lump in his throat. “Like—if I saw a car crash. And told one car to avoid that route. The other car would still be there and—“ he cuts off and turns away from them. “It’s like, _something_ has decide that certain things _have_ to happen. If I had had a way to stop Gards in the first place and actually stopped him, someone else could have gone into Freddie. Someone else might have hit him a little differently and they could have hurt him. I don’t know how it works, I was never, like, given a rule book? Or a manual? I was just… given the future.”

“ _Mitchy_ ,” Marty murmurs. “Who all knows?”

“My family. Auston. You two.”

“Jesus,” Mo breathes. “Does it happen a lot?”

“What?”

“The future thing?”

“The future happens all the time,” Mitch tells Mo, rolling his eyes and finally feeling confident enough to look back at him. “If you mean like, seeing it, yeah. Multiple times a day. I—don’t know how to explain it. It’s not really like I live through it, but like, a new memory forms? And the memory is like— _really_ vivid.”

“Can you control it?” Marty wonders.

“Depends. I can steer it and block things, but like—I. Auston is upset with me, I think. Or he should be. He asked me to block him. And I did, for two months. But I couldn’t, when I had the seizure, and I just—have all these visions.”

“Did you know you were gonna get hurt last night? Or about the seizure?”

“I knew about my shoulder. Not the seizure. I don’t know everything, thank fuck.”

“Well can you tell us when the fuck you’re getting out of here?” Mo teases, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

Mitch frowns, and focuses. He thinks about it harder, and then—

“I—no.”

“Damn,” Mo says.

Mitch barely hears him because, well—

“Holy shit,” he breathes, and sits up straight, staring directly at the wall. He thinks about—anything, everything. About Marty—about Syd—about his mom—his brother—Mo—the Leafs—even the fucking Stanley Cup, and—

“I can’t fucking see anything.”

“Literally, or like, in your thing.”

“The fucking future I can’t— _oh my god,_ ” he gasps, and his eyes well with tears.

He can see Mo look at Marty in his peripherals, and it looks like neither of them knows what to do. Mitch just—he just—just wants to see—needs to see. He’s never not been able to, as long as he can remember and he—

He can hear himself gasping for air, and that’s when Marty’s face shows up in front of his. Marty is talking to him, but Mitch can’t hear him, can’t hear anything but the blood rushing through his body and his heart pumping it and his lungs pushing the air out and gulping it back in. He’s looking for anything. Finally, despite knowing that he shouldn’t, he looks for Auston, the one thing that has always come naturally to him, and he comes up blank.

Nothing.

He bites down on his lip to stop himself from crying out because, well, he doesn’t actually know how to do this. For all his questions of why he was like this and deciding that seeing the future was truly pointless—he _needs it_. It’s—his head feels wrong. He feels nauseous—he’s—he’s—

Really, actually nauseous.

“Gonna be sick.”

Two vomit bags, four cups of water, and a dose of phenergan later, Mitch is calm enough to lie back in his bed. He lays on his side with his knees up to his chest as his nurse explains that this is simply a side effect of the seizure and it would be gone within a few hours to a few weeks, all depending on how he recovers. Mitch isn’t concerned about the vomiting.

As soon as the nurse left, Auston walks back in, a sandwich and bottled water in hand. He moves to take a seat in his chair again, but pauses when he sees Marty’s angry glare turned on him. “What’d I do _now?_ ” he huffs. “You honestly wanna blame the puking on me, too?”

Mitch reaches a hand out towards Marty. “Don’t,” he sniffles.

Marty inhales deeply through his nose but nods. Only then does Auston look at Mitch. He freezes. “You good?”

Mitch wants to laugh. Auston would think so. He would be so fucking happy right now. He would be thrilled that Mitch couldn’t see the future anymore. Meanwhile, Mitch thinks he’s crumbling. But he smiles. “Yeah.”

Marty, ever loyal to Mitch, bites his lips.

Mo, however, snorts.

Mitch glares. “Shut up.”

“No.”

“Mo.”

“Mitch.”

“Mitchy—“ Auston cuts in.

“Dude _shut up_ ,” Marty joins in.

“Oh my god can we _not_ ,” Mitch demands. “I am the one in a hospital bed, I am the one who gets to make the calls.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, like, at all,” Mo counters. “It’s like. The opposite of how it works. And you can control Marty, but not me. You two are done being children. You could see the future—“

“—you _told_ them?—“

“—you had a seizure, you can’t see the future, you freaked out, and you’re not okay.” Mo turns to look at Auston who is staring at Mitch. He doesn’t even glance at Mo. “And _you_. If _you’re_ going to be captain—which you _are_ , soon—you need to learn to fucking communicate. Listen to other people, don’t make your own conclusions, and if you do, don’t hold them as _true_.”

“What does he mean you can’t see the future?” Auston asks, his words coming slow, like he’s still trying to process the information.

Mitch looks down at his hospital gown and hangs his head. “It’s just gone. Please just—“

He cuts himself off and swallows. There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes start leaking tears again. He’s embarrassed right now, but he’s more upset that Auston could be so glad that his visions are gone when they’re so much of the reason that Mitch is probably in love with Auston. But then again, maybe Mitch should be glad that they’re gone, too. Without them, he wouldn’t have that problem in the first place. (That’s not necessarily true. Mitch thinks he’d love Auston no matter what, it just might have taken some time, if he had met him at nineteen. But now—he’s pretty much known him for a decade.)

Still a large portion of what makes Mitch who he is has been taken away and he doesn’t want to believe that someone he cares for can be happy about that. Even if he was just wishing himself that they were gone. He, like, knew they never actually would go away at the time, he never thought he could actually _lose_ the future.

He tosses his feet over the bed and grabs his IV pole. He moves to the bathroom and shuts the door. Before he can even lift his robe up, he hears Auston clearly:

“Has he told the doctor about his visions yet?”

Mitch moves and presses himself against the door so he can hear better. “Not that I know of,” Mo answers.

“He fucking needs to,” Auston says, and he sounds angry or scared or both.

“What?” Marty cries, and like, same.

“The doctor needs to know everything—what if they’re missing something? What if they didn’t test for something because they thought Mitch has all his brain stuff working, but like, he doesn’t, and they miss something and like, you can’t fuck around with the brain—it’s—“

“Aus—“ Mo hisses. “Calm down. Mitch is fine. They’ve done everything they can, okay?”

“ _No they haven’t_ ,” he says, and he sounds genuinely distressed. Mitch isn’t sure what’s going on.

There’s a snort, and Mitch places it immediately as Marty’s. “Wouldn’t expect you to care so m—“

“Would you fucking _stop with that?_ ” Auston honest to fucking god _wails_ , and Mitch reaches over to flush an empty toilet and opens the door.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Auston looks up at him, and his eyes are wide and alert. The other two look up at him, Marty looking shocked and Mo looking caught in the middle, which isn’t uncommon. Mitch moves back to the bed and grabs his water cup because honestly, he still has to go to the bathroom, especially now that he’s stood up, so he’d like an excuse whenever this conversation is over, but. For now he stares at his friends.

Auston lifts his chin up. “Tell the doctor about your visions.”

Mitch takes a large sip. He has to go to the bathroom more now. “No.”

“Mitch—“

“ _Auston_.”

Auston tenses his jaw and glares. “Mitch you need to—“

“No.”

“ _You need to—_ “

“No.”

“Mitch _please_ ,” he croaks.

Mitch freezes. What? He sighs. “Why?”

Auston sits up straight, like he’s giving a presentation in a business meeting. Or, like how Mitch thinks someone giving a presentation in a business meeting might look. He’s not sure. He’s a hockey player.

“Your visions were obviously affected by your seizure, but that means part of your brain was. Part of your brain already was, being that you had a seizure, but—what if there’s damage and they don’t realize because they don’t know about your visions? What if there’s internal bleeding, or a tumor, or—“

Mitch frowns. He shakes his head. “No, Aus. They did a CT to check for an injury since the seizure happened right after I went into the boards.”

“But what if they were looking in the wrong place?”

“They were looking at my entire brain, Auston. I can’t tell them. I won’t.”

“Why _not?_ ” he demands.

“Because,” Mitch snaps. “It’s already terrifying enough being different. The more people know, the more people want to know about it, the more people want to find out about it, the more people will do to find out about it. I took psychology in high school. I watched those videos. I’m not becoming an experiment.”

(Marty tenses up in his chair and clenches his fists and Mitch knows that Marty would fight anyone who tried to get to Mitch. He appreciates that.)

Auston relaxes his back into his chair, but his shoulders remain tense. He holds Mitch’s gaze for an extended period of time, and then sets his jaw and nods once. He looks away.

“I’m fine. Aren’t you so happy about this anyways?” Mitch taunts. He might still be bitter. (He is still bitter. It’s been like ten minutes since he’s realized, okay?)

“What? No, why?”

“You hate my visions.”

Auston frowns. “I don’t like what you do with your visions.”

What? “What?”

“What?” Mo echoes.

Auston turns to glower at Mo. He looks back at Mitch. “Why don’t we talk about this at home?” he suggests.

“You fucking do _anything_ to him—“

“Jesus _Christ_ , man—“ Auston starts.

“Marty, back off.” Mitch cuts in. Marty harumphs and falls back in his chair. Mitch is reminded shockingly of Jax and has to keep himself from laughing. He turns to Auston. “We’ll talk at home.”

**;

He gets discharged the next morning with a packet about tonic-clonic seizures and what symptoms would prompt a return to the ER. They get back to the hotel early in the afternoon and have time to pack and check their rooms for any missed items, and then head to the airport early.

They end up getting into Toronto around 9 and all head home for sleep. Auston drives Mitch home since they live closest together and Mitch is recommended against driving as of now, but they don’t get to talk.

His mom is waiting for him when they get home and Auston has a game the next day, so he goes to his own home, and they don’t get to talk.

They have a game that Mitch can’t play in the next day, and they don’t get to talk.

The team leaves for Raleigh as soon as they’re finished playing the Senators and Mitch barely even gets in a good bye.

They don’t get to talk.

It’s been several days where they just haven’t had the chance to talk—Mitch has been with trainers working on his shoulder, Auston at practice, and his mom has been… a mom. She hasn’t gone home yet, even though the doctor said many seizures are one off occurrences and he likely had nothing to worry about. He recommended staying vigilant about his blood sugar and stress levels in the mean time, but apart from that, Mitch is infinitely more worried about his shoulder.

Saturday night he’s in the press box during the Canadiens game. It’s the start of the third period and he watches as Auston ties up the game. He makes a note that he’ll definitely have to try and talk to him soon, watching as he skates along and bumps everyone’s fist.

He imagines himself down there, with his teammates on the bench, holding his hand out to tap the others. But the jerseys that surround him are white, instead of the blue that they always wear at home. He looks over at the goal. That’s a teal jersey, rather than the white and red Mitch should be seeing. He looks up at the score board. He sees 1:09 of power play time left (or that would have been left) and 13:19 left—in the second period. And he’s in San Jose. Who they play next.

Mitch blinks, and he’s looking down at the rink again, and no time has passed.

He tenses up, and then tentatively thinks about shooting the puck at the net and sees a power play goal against the Flyers—also a team they’re playing soon.

He thinks about his brother and gets a vivid image of him driving through a snowstorm, screaming at someone beside him—his girlfriend. Last time he talked to his brother at length he had said they were having trouble.

He—he can’t believe it. He smiles—wide and unashamedly, his teeth on display and his eyes crinkled.

When the game is over he hurries down to the locker room and pats everyone on the back. He gives Fred a hug and ruffles his the hair on the back of his head and makes him laugh. He jumps on Marty and fist bumps Reemer and Bozie and hugs Willy and Zach. He smiles wide at Auston and when he approaches Mo, the man holds up his hands in a defensive stance.

“You know we lost, right?”

Mitch shrugs, grin still stretched over his lips. “OT loss. Half-win. Did we really lose?”

“Okay, who lost their puppy?” Willy asks, and grabs the back collar of Mitch’s shirt and hauls him into the center of the room. Mitch squawks and laughs and spins and messes with Willy’s hair some more, who whines loudly and ducks away to run over to Zach.

Auston walks over. They haven’t returned to how they were at the start of the season (Mitch thinks it’s going to take a lot for that to happen even if it’s clear that Auston doesn’t openly hate him anymore), but they’ve come a long way from Mitch casting glances out of the corner of his eye and Auston glaring. And in only a week’s time. Mitch counts it as a success.

Auston claps his hands on Mitch’s shoulders and leans his head in close (Mitch still wants to kiss him after all this time). “Calm down, Marns.”

“Can’t, sorry,” Mitch shrugs.

Auston frowns, and pulls his head back, looking at both of his shoulders, and then at his torso. “Dude. You’re like, literally _shaking_.”

Mitch laughs—it probably sounds manic, maybe a little evil. He just—he’s so fucking happy right now.

“Dude, _what_ is going on?”

Mitch raises an eyebrow.

Auston raises both back.

Mitch grins. “The future looks good, buddy.”

Auston furrows his eyebrows together and then realization blossoms across his face. A grin blooms and Mitch feels like he’s floating. “ _Mitchy_ ,” Auston breathes, and gathers him in a hug.

“Oh, and I’m pretty sure they’re giving me the okay to join the team for the road trip.”

“Dude!”

Mitch nods happily. “So like—we have that break when we get back,” he says. “We’ll talk then, okay?”

Auston schools his face into a cool grin and agrees. He leans in to hug Mitch and presses his face into Mitch’s neck. “’m so glad you’re all safe,” he murmurs, and then turns and goes back to his stall. Mitch just stands there for a minute, surprised and also flattered. A few guys around the room are watching curiously, but Mitch ignores them and makes a beeline to Marty.

Marty doesn’t look at him, just keeps his eyes on Auston who is talking to Gards and Leo. Marty is scowling. “He can’t just change his mind because he made you sick and you lost your visions.”

Mitch nudges Marty in to his locker. “That’s why we’re talking about it. And like—he wasn’t awful to me unless you guys forced us into close proximity, and then it might have been because he was scared. I know I’m scary, okay?” Mitch thinks about his words when he sees the grin stretching across Marty’s face and then backtracks. “Okay, like—my thing is scary. My— _head—brain is scary_.” He pauses dramatically. “Plus I just told him I can see again and he hugged me, so—“

Marty yelps and is completely distracted from Auston Matthews for now, and Mitch is willing to accept both the teasing and the bear hug for that.

**;

Auston comes over on the 5th. It’s exactly three months to the day since he was last in Mitch’s apartment.

He comes over after practice and Mitch has his lock box out and unlocked by the time Auston get there, even though they left at almost the same time. Mitch motions Auston towards the box, wordlessly telling him to help himself, and Auston reaches for the one on top of the left pile. Jan 2011-May 2012.

He flips through it and scans the pages. He reads the tabs along the sides, but his face stays neutral, even though Mitch knows he’s had more visions of Auston than any other single thing in his life. Each notebook contains at least ten to twenty pages dedicated to him.

He flips a page but his eyes drift from the book. He looks up at Mitch.

“Why didn’t you stop Gards?”

“What should I have done?” Mitch challenges. “It’s—I can’t just say, ‘hey, I saw you crashing into Freddie, so when you get a break away tomorrow shoot further out.’ And like—I wouldn’t even if I could. It… doesn’t have a good track record.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was ten, the first time I tried to _change_ a vision. I didn’t play a game because I saw myself losing an edge, going into a kid in the boards, and hurting his ankle. Another kid did it. Someone bigger. He ended up breaking his ankle. My fault.” He pauses, and reaches for a notebook. He scans the tabs along the side. “I tried a few other smaller things, too, like the color cat we rescued and even tried to purposefully get a different grade on an exam but. Nothing ever worked. Nothing ever changed, all the things I tried to stop still happened. And then—when I was fifteen I saw my mom get rear-ended really hard by a van at an intersection she had to go through to get to work. My mom drove a van, too. She would’ve been banged up, but fine,” he tells Auston. He hands him the notebook. “A guy on a motorcycle got hit by the same van from my vision, the day I asked her to avoid it. He was rushed to the hospital and I only know he’s alive because I could see his future once I found his name and looked. But the accident was my fault.

“The things that I see—they’re going to happen. If things have to be changed up a bit after I interfere, whatever makes the decisions—it doesn’t care. I could have killed a man. I don’t interfere anymore.”

Auston is still staring at the entry, and then the scribbled in entries beneath it.

‘ _2012-10-03_

_Mom is going to get in an accident soon. Red van speeding up behind her and air bags pop out and hurt her chest. She is wearing a white shirt with black stripes and has curly hair._

_2012-10-10_

_Mom wore the outfit today, I told her my vision. She took a different route to work. Same red van sped through intersection and hit a motorcycle today. Road had to be shut down. Man was taken to hospital. News released crash info, but not on man._

_I think I killed a man._

_2012-10-11_

_He’s safe._ ’

The blue ruled lines bleed from his tears that he’d cried at the time—fear and guilt consuming his entire being. He remembers being so sick that week—his mom hadn’t made him go to school or any other commitments. They said he had the flu. No one doubted them—when he returned to school he was still pale with dark circles under his eyes, but he wasn’t getting sick anymore. He lost a lot of friends, for a long time, because for the next year he threw himself in to schoolwork and hockey. It was nice—his grades shot up, but, well. He still feels sick to his stomach at times.

“I… _thought_ she was just, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or—my skating wasn’t good enough. But—whatever causes anything in the world to happen, like, it’ll happen, even if I do something—something was meant to happen. Like the fucking _exam_. Our teacher decided to give us the test again, and then afterwards said that if we got a higher grade it would count and not the old exam. And I _knew_ Fred was going to be fine. But even if I didn’t, or even if I knew he was going to get hurt, there was nothing I could do.”

“So then why are you _like this_ ,” Auston questions, sounding so confused and frustrated and upset.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not enough, Marns.”

“I _don’t_ ,” he says again. “And—and, like sure, it was, _is_ nice getting to know stuff before everyone else. But I’ve never known why. My mom just told me I was special, and my dad didn’t fight with me as much because he knew I was going to be a Knight, and then a Leaf, y’know. But I never _asked_ for it, and like—I don’t always want it? I know how and when my mom is going to die, Auston. I can’t change it. You—get to live in ignorance to all this stuff, and I _can’t_. The good, the bad, the bland—I see it all, and I always have. And the good? It’s… like—nothing can catch me off guard. I’ve gotten better at blocking over the years, but—if I don’t know what to block? I block the Cup, even though I’ve seen—well, like.” He pauses and changes his train of thought—he won’t spoil it for Auston, too. “The Mem Cup. It was great. But I keep thinking about how much better it would’ve been if I hadn’t known it was going to happen over a year in advance. And just—I don’t… hate what I see. But I don’t love it, either. It’s just—I don’t know anything different. It’s a part of me that I can’t just—stop being. And now that I’ve had to stop being that, I don’t _want_ to stop being. I really don’t know why I’m like this, Auston, but I am, and I don’t know how to be who I am without it.”

Auston hesitates. “Can I tell you something?”

“Always,” Mitch says.

“I—the first night. Before I thought you just—would let Fred get hurt. There’s another reason I was angry,” Auston tells him. “Not angry, exactly, just. You had a notebook about me. Or—that had me. You had multiple pages dedicated to me, more so than anyone else or anything else. And I—was sitting on something. Debating if I ever wanted to bring it up. And I freaked, thinking—you saw it, and maybe… you were trying to like, say ‘hey, I saw this happening, don’t bother.’ Because like—I do still think to a degree it’s an invasion of privacy. I’d like to keep some things secret. But how will I know if they’re kept a secret around you? How does anyone?”

“If you’re never going to tell me, I won’t know, Matts.”

“But—you saw me with my parents. You weren’t there. You can see conversations I have with other people. You can—spy on my life. And that—really freaks me out, okay?”

“I don’t _mean_ to—“

“And I get that. I—you tried so hard to stop from seeing everything for those months. I get that if you could, you would just—stop seeing me if I asked. But I don’t want that anymore, Marns. All I want is like—I just want you to be okay. You don’t know how much I hate myself—“

“ _What?_ ” Mitch cuts him off. “Why?”

Auston blinks. “You had all those visions when you had your seizure, Marns. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

“What? No, Aus—the doctor said—“

“Did the doctor know about your visions?”

“No—“

“So the doctor didn’t have the chance to accurately assess the situation,” Auston points out. He looks down. “I saw the tabs in that first notebook, Marns. I was on more than half of them, and that was—what, a 100 page notebook? With like six or seven visions on each page? That’s—it’s a lot. _Of me_.”

“Yeah,” Mitch says, guiltily.

“No—don’t,” Auston pleads. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ever made you feel bad about something you have no control over. And like—writing them down is a good idea, Mitch. It just—it freaked me out so bad because I just—I _really_ fucking liked you, Mitch. I fucking fell, so fucking hard, ever since I met you. And I—it’s just—I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know if you already knew, or—“

“I didn’t know that,” Mitch says.

“Oh.”

“Can I tell _you_ something?”

Auston nods.

“Since I was younger—any visions I had of us on the Leafs, we were always… together. We lived together, I think. Maybe not, but it was always—in the same house, always together. It’s this really nice house, and I just—remember having _sleepovers_ with you, until I was old enough to start hoping they weren’t sleepovers. And _that_ scared me, because I have… set myself up to get my heart broken a lot. But like, I always thought, like—you were always there. Always. And so I thought like, if nothing else you’d be important. And—that’s why I told you. No one knew except my mom, dad, and brother. Not my grandparents, aunts and uncles, or—anyone. I just—you had always been there. And I thought you always would be. I thought like—I couldn’t change the future. And certain things I had seen about us hadn’t happened yet, so I thought—you’d be fine when I told you, because I made up my mind. You’re the only future I’ve ever changed—and I—I never wanted that. I always hoped you to love me. I always wanted you by my side.”

“I—“

“No, just—I’m sorry. For like, putting you through that. I shouldn’t have just—counted on the future.”

“Before I was angry about Fred, I thought you were letting me down easy.”

Mitch snorts. “Dude, that’d never happen. And like, I can see the future, so—yeah.”

Auston rolls his eyes. “You woke up from your seizure and asked if you were any good at hockey. I said yes and said you _didn’t see that coming_. I’m starting to doubt this isn’t all a ruse.”

“No— _no_. You said I was _the best_ and I said I didn’t see _that_ coming. And you _laughed at me!_ ” Mitch protests.

“You’re one of the best,” Auston argues. Mitch opens his mouth to argue, but Auston glares. “Dude, don’t even.” He opens his mouth again. “And don’t make a hit-‘em-with-the-four joke.” Mitch closes his mouth. Auston laughs. “Who’s the psychic here?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Mitch huffs. “I prefer the term clairvoyant.”

“Seriously?”

“Please, no.”

Auston’s eyes widen and he perks up, then. Mitch already regrets whatever he’s about to say. “So if you went to prison and broke out, would you be a small medium at large?”

Mitch gapes for a moment, and then stumbles over “fuck you, I’m not small.”

Auston grins—his happiest grin, where Mitch can see his tongue poking out from behind his teeth and his eyes are bright, and the bridge of his nose is crinkled. He reaches out and ruffles Mitch’s hair, and then drops his hand so it’s resting on Mitch’s knee. He sighs, serious again, like a switch has been flipped. “I still like you,” Auston admits. “And I’d date you, but I just—don’t know how it would be. With you seeing—like, everything.” (Mitch cannot believe Auston just said he’d date him, and then followed it with a but.) “It’s just—so new, and—I already told you the privacy thing and—it’s different.”

“Oh,” Mitch says. “Okay. So. I guess I’m never dating anyone.”

“What?”

“Dude. I looked for someone else like me for years. No one else is like me. Of course it’s new. I mean—I don’t blame you. I’m not like, mad at you, this isn’t me being mad or anything. You have a right to feel what you feel.”

Auston takes his hand away. He raises both of his hands to his head and shoves them in his hair, and puts his elbows on his knees. “And I _feel_ like I wanna fucking kiss you, Marns—it’s just— _not that fucking easy_.”

Mitch closes his eyes—he can’t watch Auston like this, not about him, especially. “Dude, just—maybe we just need to—“

His eyes are closed still, so he doesn’t see it coming when Auston rips his hands from his head and lunges towards Mitch. Their lips crash together, painfully, Mitch wants to add, but Auston doesn’t pull away, and Mitch doesn’t either. It’s awkward, and Auston didn’t even manage to land fully on Mitch’s lips, but he works his way over until he’s centered, and then works against Mitch—taunting him until both of them are breathing hard into each other’s mouths as they switch the angle.

Auston puts his hands on Mitch’s waist and pulls him—yanks him on to Auston’s lap, and Mitch just—he just goes. He just—just…

Pulls away.

Auston follows his lips, trying to stay with him, but, like—

“Aus, dude—“

“Mitchy,” he whines and holy shit is he testing Mitch’s self control.

“Bud—you just—you were just saying that you didn’t want to do this.”

“I did not say that,” Auston grumbles, shifting back on the couch and pulling Mitch with him. “I said I wanted to date you, I just didn’t know how it would be. And I said I wanted to kiss you but that it wasn’t easy. Turns out it was.” He pauses. “Is.”

“Auston—“

“Mitchy—you would do anything for me. You just—you weren’t blaming me for saying that I wasn’t sure I could date you even though I wanted to and you want me to. You stopped me now because you think I’ll regret it, even though you didn’t want to. Even when I was so nasty to you, and told you there was something wrong with you, and accused you of hurting Fred, and—you were _scared_ of me,” he says, and his voice wavers and then cracks. “You still did everything you could for me, everything I asked you to. Hyms told me you stayed away from my fucking _bed_ because you thought I wouldn’t want you near it. _It was a fucking bed_. You would do anything for me, Mitch. No matter what, no matter what you see, you’d do anything for me, and I want to do anything for you. I just—I want your visions to come true. I want that house you see us in, having those _sleepovers_. I want that Stanley Cup—“ Mitch tenses up at that. Auston smirks. “It was on an Austin tab from the 2012 notebook. _And_ had a Stanley Cup tag on it. _Of fucking course_ I’m turning to that page.”

“ _No_ ,” Mitch moans. “I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”

Auston shakes his head. “You didn’t. We’ll win that one, and we’ll win another, and another. All of them together, okay?”

Mitch nods. “Yeah.”

“See, I don’t need a super power to know that much.”

Mitch starts to roll his eyes, feeling ridiculously happy that Auston called his ability a super power, but Auston leans in to kiss him and his eyes slip shut before he can.

While they kiss, visions slip past his consciousness—

Auston, grinning as Mitch holds a ring out in front of him. “Thank fuck. I was about to go and buy a ring myself, but that would’ve been fucking pointless if you saw it happen.”

Auston, in a tux. One of his friends from Arizona is stand behind him in another tux. Fred is behind Auston’s Arizona friend. Werenski is behind Fred. Auston is beaming at Mitch and his eyes are bright and… glossy? Mitch looks to his right and there’s a crowd of people in chairs watching them, and his mom is clinging to his dad, crying, while Auston’s mom has her hands clasped underneath her chin, staring up at Mitch and Auston, looking so, so happy and proud.

Walking down a street, a hand in his own—he glances over. Auston is walking beside him, smiling down at the ground. They walk past strangers. Auston is in a ball cap and a t-shirt and shorts—not trying to hide his identity at all. They’re walking in the streets of Toronto, not trying to hide themselves—their joined hands, their happiness, at all.

Curled up in bed, naked skin pressed against more naked skin—their backs against the headboard and knees tilted towards the other. “What about Jason?”

“I don’t hate it,” Mitch says. “What about Braiden?”

“Braiden Marner-Matthews doesn’t… sound _right_.”

“You’re right.”

“I mean. We’ve got time.”

Mitch laughs. “Years, as long as we both stay healthy.” Auston rolls his eyes. Mitch has always refused to look for the end of his career and blocks it out. He probably does the same with Auston’s. He won’t do that to himself or Auston.

“Can’t you just look and see what we name him?”

“No!” Mitch whines. “I already know about Gabriela—you want a son, we’re gonna fucking name him without me figuring it out.”

And then he’s hugging a little baby girl to his chest looking up at Auston in awe. Auston isn’t looking at Mitch but instead at the baby in his arms. She can’t be more than a few months old, but she’s not a new born either. Auston reaches for her wordlessly, looking to Mitch’s eyes in question, and Mitch hands her over. Auston breathes out and laughs, and Mitch does, too.

And then, Auston pulls back from the kiss, and Mitch is pulled out of his thoughts and back to the present and opens his eyes. Auston is staring at him like he can’t believe Mitch is real, and Mitch is willing to bet he doesn’t look too different. Auston grins. “I think this is going to be great.”

Mitch laughs. “I think you’re right.”

**;

(Months later, Mitch is still questioning his ability. “I don’t know why I’m like this,” he says one random night, after a particularly upsetting vision about his brother receiving a medical diagnosis.

“That’s okay. We don’t have to know everything,” Auston tells him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. Mitch looks lost and Auston wants to sooth him, but not yet.

Maybe one day Auston will let him in on the secret—that Mitch does change the future—not by stopping the bad things from happening but by knowing what they need and by knowing to be there for them. That Mitch was changing the future every day by helping those people and standing beside them, even if it wasn’t the change he was searching for. That Mitch was the future—holding it within his eyes, making Auston excited to wake up every day and see what came next, even if he didn’t get to see it first.

But for now, he let Mitch wonder, let him blink after a vision and tell it to Auston in awe or happiness or sadness or confusion or—well, there are a lot of things Mitch might feel after a vision comes to him.

His old journals stay locked up—his new ones kept with him at all times. Not an invasion of privacy, Auston had come to realize—stories, journeys, hundreds of them. Not all of them were life changing, and not all of them were good, but all of them were important and all of these seemingly small or momentous moments would be remembered—by Mitch.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT SMALLER THINGS AND NOT SO SMALLER THINGS IN THIS FIC SO: 
> 
> In my head, it’s recommended that the guys have one emergency contact on the team. Fully optional, but if they feel like sharing their medical information like allergies, medical history, etc, it’s quicker and more efficient if they can’t reach a family member. We did something similar in a group trip we took. We went on a week vacation with seven friends and ICE we chose one person each to share our medical information with who would be our contact. I think it’s a good system and would be useful in a profession like hockey. 
> 
> On the seizure: Auston believes him asking Mitch to stop looking for him led to the seizure. Mitch doesn’t know either way. In reality, it was a slew of things. PNES (psychogenic non-epileptic seizures) are believed to be caused by a psychological issue, though Mitch's seizure would likely (?) be epileptic (aka electrical activity in the brain). In my limited, somewhat made up knowledge, I can guess that the anxiety and attempt to fear suppress paired with blocking Auston out paired with his visions that he was still seeing caused excessive neuron activity thus, causing the seizure. (In all honesty, there was some actual research done. Anxiety and fear suppressing neurons are both found in the hippocampus... WHICH IS LOCATED... ... stand by.) 
> 
> TW: talk of seizure now. Mitch could have had a (medial) temporal lobe seizure. Temporal lobes are where short term memories are stored and medial temporal is where long term memories are stored AND where the hippocampus is located, and the hippocampus plays a role in both short and long term memories. Mitch experiences visions like they are memories, perhaps the temporal lobe is where they occur. Some are more vivid than others as time goes on, so some are more like short term memories, and some more like long term. As he is recovering from his seizure, he loses his ability. It takes longer to come back because his brain needs time to recover. Your body does not want to destroy itself (typically, just wait for one of the upcoming fics :) lmao), so it will shut itself down to heal. In Mitch’s case, his body shut his psychic ability down so his brain could heal. The body is weird like that (that much, I can say with certainty, I just don't know relative weirdness to the brain). 
> 
> Other possible causes: seizures cause extreme fatigue. Fatigue and energy levels may have something to do with his ability to see the future. It also could have been psychological. He could have been angry with himself about Auston and just completely shut down. Despite looking, he didn't really wanna look, or try looking, or just simply couldn't look because pain that is caused by your brain is still causing you pain, so it could still put his visions on hold. Maybe. 
> 
> Also, Marty and Auston were not yelling while Mitch was having a seizure, they waited until he was still and they had called an ambulance. And then they freaked out. Mostly Marty. Obviously, Marty attributes it to Auston, as well. They could have waited until Mitch was gone, but at least they stayed calm to make sure he was safe? Small victories for an angry/panicking Marty and scared/panicking Auston. 
> 
> I do not personally have PNES, but a friend does and I do have extremely temporary, episodic memory loss on where I am and who I’m with. The blind trust Mitch has to deal with is written based on how I’ve watched her live her life, and the memories coming back is similar to how I recover. I’ve heard some people explain them differently, and I’m sure not everyone would experience this the same way as Mitch did in the fic. I’d be more than happy to discuss any of these with any one who is curious or has gone through this, though I will not delve too personally into my friend’s life. If you’re curious about any of it though, feel free to ask, I'd be more than happy to do my best to educate on PNES or explain personal experiences with memory loss. 
> 
> Approach what I say with caution, especially if you have knowledge of the brain, as I did some reading, but not enough to back this up in any way. 
> 
> In this ‘verse, Mitch is not the only one with powers, but so few people have them, that it’s not discussed, and not all of them are super useful. There is a man in Turkey who can hear a normal speaking voice from over a mile away. There is a woman in Australia who can become invisible. There’s a child in Nigeria who can move things with their mind. It’s like the mutants in the X-Men verse, but like. No one knows about one another, and they hide, and they don’t tell anyone. 
> 
> I'll put some more stuff in after the epilogue, but that was just mostly about the seizure and his memory loss haha. More on his visions and their relationship in the end notes of the epilogue. :)


	3. But I Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like, don’t get Auston wrong: he loves everyone in this room. He knows all of them care about the players first, hockey second. 
> 
> Doesn’t mean he’s not freaking out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no explanation for this being late apart from I just haven't been on the computer, I'm sorry! 
> 
> This is it, thank you all so much for your reviews. This fic has been a journey for me. I started it almost nine months ago and took so many breaks from it, and to see that love y'all have given it means so much. I adore all of you so much and I can't thank you guys enough for taking the time to read this, even if it's just some silly fictional work about two dumbass Maple Leafs. :)

Hymie literally _raised his hand_. When Mitch nodded at him, he struggled to get out, “so… you’re psychic?”

“I guess it’s called precognitive,” Mitch corrects Hymie. “But since it’s supposed to be fictional, yeah, that works.”

Auston doesn’t like this.

Like, he loves that Mitch trusts these people, but he doesn’t like this. It’s too much at once, and it’s just going to be a reminder of how he had fucked up just over a year ago when he abandoned Mitch because of his own insecurities not allowing him to even _try_ to communicate with Mitch. These people are all better than him.

They’re at Naz’s—he has the biggest, calmest (aka kid free) place, and when Mitch had announced that he wanted to talk to a specific group of them about something, Naz had graciously offered it up. (Of course, that meant no one was able to go against him when he suggested Thai food, so Auston thinks he might have had ulterior motives.)

Willy and Zach are cuddling which Auston admits he never would’ve seen coming. The, like, relationship anyways. He sees the cuddling coming, now, because they do it _all the time_. Apparently they had gotten together when he was avoiding Mitch last year and he had completely missed it. It honestly shocks him because that means William Nylander has been in a committed relationship for a year. Like, visits in the summer and everything. It’s almost disgusting.

Marty sits next to them, since he’s the only one who doesn’t mind it—he claims that being Mitch’s best friend has put him in training for this very moment. Auston’s not sure how true that is because like, as Mitch’s boyfriend he cuddles Mitch a lot more than Marty cuddles him, and he’d try and get a seat away from them. Marty also has a soft spot for Hymie, though. Marty is the only one in the room who isn’t staring directly at Mitch, instead his eyes are trained on Auston.

They’re not close like they used to be, like being simultaneous best friends with Mitch Marner would prompt, but Marty doesn’t hate him anymore and Auston counts it as progress. Mitch still has to mediate sometimes, and Marty isn’t afraid to use the months that Auston abandoned Mitch against him which, honestly, fucking sucks, but. He accepts that Marty is in Mitch’s life for good and will always drop the gloves for him—metaphorically or not. Auston is the same, but Marty doesn’t seem to really fuck up around Mitch, so it’s a moot point.

Fred, Mo, and Gards are clumped together on one leg of the 90-degree couch, and then JVR is sitting in the corner. Bozie sits next to him, and then next to a gap where Naz was (before he got up right after Mitch said he could see the future because the food had arrived), and then—Patrick Marleau.

Auston may not have the best memory, but when Mitch is weird, he remembers it. So when Patrick Marleau signed with the Leafs in the offseason, the first thing he did was call Mitch. Mitch tried to shrug him off, but Auston kept pushing.

“We just end up being bros with him. It was weird when it first started popping up, but dude he’s _great_ , we’re gonna love him.”

Auston laughed. “Okay. But like—any other weird questions like that, you explain what’s going on and what you see.”

“But—“

“No,” Auston said. “I don’t care if you’re trying to protect me or not ruin anything—I want to know.”

Mitch grumbled into the phone but agreed.

And like, honestly. Even with Mitch occasionally filling Auston in on their relationship with Patty, Auston hadn’t really been able to process it. He had no idea what Euchre even was, so he couldn’t picture himself sitting at a table with San Jose Sharks legend playing a fucking card game. So, Mitch can’t really ruin much for Auston because like, a lot of stuff he just can’t… picture.

Auston revels in his friendship with Patty now, and he knows Mitch does, too. Patty is kind and accepting and like honestly, he should’ve been the first one they told, even if they’ve known him the shortest.

And then there’s Mac. Auston and he were good friends, but Mitch—has a weird bond with him. And Mac is one of the most trust worthy people on the team anyways. He won’t pry or ask any personal questions, and anything he does hear is held near and dear to his heart.

Like, don’t get Auston wrong: he loves everyone in this room. He knows all of them care about the players first, hockey second.

Doesn’t mean he’s not freaking out.

“That’s not real,” JVR speaks up, finally breaking the silence.

Mitch sighs. “So, I had this vision last year. And I wrote it down. Like I do with all of my visions. Here.”

He moves to the coffee table and scans the tabs on the side. He flips it open to one, and Auston sees a passage highlighted in blue. He had already showed Auston, so Auston knows what they’re all reading now.

’ _10-26-2016_

 _In a living room I don’t know, Willy and Hymie cuddling next to Marty. There’s an L couch, Fred, Mo, and Gards are on one side, JVR, Boz, and Marleau (?!!!!!!!) are on the other. Someone else is in a recliner. He’s a hockey player but I can’t put his name to his face. Either a back up or AHL call up. They’re all staring at me. Auston is behind me, holding my hand. He doesn’t seem comfortable._ ’

“When I decided to tell you guys, I went looking for this. I brought it just in case, but I didn’t know why Naz wasn’t in there. I have my answer now,” Mitch shrugs, nodding his head towards the kitchen. There’s plastic and paper bags rustling in there, and things being placed on counters.

“We would’ve vouched for you,” Mo says.

“That wouldn’t have worked. Matts didn’t believe me until—“

“Hey Mitchy why is my name on this post-it?” Willy asks.

Mitch hesitates. “Like I said, I write my visions down. Those are some of the ones you’re in.”

Willy’s face brightens and he moves to flip to the page but Marty’s hand slams down on the notebook. “Don’t. Mitch didn’t tell you that you could do that.”

“But they’re about _me_ ,” Willy protests. He looks up at Mitch and Auston crowds further into Mitch’s space, protective. “Why do _you_ get to know my future, and I don’t?”

Mitch sighs. “You can look if you want. I won’t stop you. But there might be things you don’t want to know. Knowing the future isn’t like, this great thing.”

Auston tunes out Mitch’s explanation—he still doesn’t like to think about the fact that Mitch is going to have to experience his mom’s death twice. He doesn’t know what’s on Willy’s page, but Mitch isn’t big on sharing the future anyways.

Naz walks back in the room at that moment. He looks at Mitch, and then the group on the furniture. “We’re still on that? I thought that little thing would be over by the time I got back.”

Mac frowns from where he sits, having not made much noise yet. “You thought everyone would get over Mitch seeing the future in five minutes?”

“Well, he can’t actually see the future.”

“Well,” JVR begins, and Naz tenses up.

“You guys can't be falling for this?”

Auston watches as a scuffle begins—arguments between JVR, Bozie, and Naz, while Patty sits off to the side and tries to avoid being bumped into when they start shoving.

Patty looks at Mitch. “Vlasy told me you asked about me in France. That actually makes sense now.”

“Today is the first vision I saw of you, I was so confused at the time.”

The scuffling has stopped, and the three men have calmed down enough to focus back on Mitch. “That doesn’t explain your and Matts’ argument,” Bozie points out. “You started out this entire thing with that—how does that even—“

“There was a misunderstanding,” Mitch cuts in.

Willy snorts. “A big misunderstanding.”

“I fucking know,” Auston snaps.

Mitch squeezes his hand and tilts his head back to look at him. He smiles up at him and Auston lets himself relax.

“I told Auston about Gards crashing into Fred.”

“There’s a lot more to it, but Mitch can’t change his visions, and if he does, it doesn’t work out well. I didn’t know this, so I thought he just—let Fred get hurt.”

“But I didn’t get hurt,” Fred frowns.

“I know,” Auston says, “but you could’ve and I thought Mitch just would’ve let that happen and didn’t care.”

“Mitch has always cared—“

“We know,” Mo says, and shoots a look at Auston. His shoulders are taut, but his face is kind. “It was a mistake. Auston also didn’t have anyone else there when Mitch told him. Mitch also had never told anyone else, and didn’t know how. It’s a scary thing, okay? Auston’s reaction was valid, even if it went on a little longer than it should have. But he’s not the only one to blame for that.”

Auston stares down at the floor. He’s still ashamed of his reaction, but—listening to Mo, he feels infinitely better.

“Auston is also a unique situation,” Mitch interjects. “I see more of him than anyone else. I’ve seen him since I was a kid. For those of you who were there for my seizure, you might remember that I knew Auston before I knew any of you. If I gave you a notebook filled with stuff that there should be no way I could know about you, told you I saw it in a vision, and that I’ve been doing it since I was nine years old, a _decade_ before I met you… how would you react?”

“Call the cops?” JVR jokes.

“Oh,” Mitch says. “So—probably a good thing I got stuck on Auston and not you, then.”

Auston realizes what Mitch and Mo, and even to some extent JVR, are doing. He appreciates it.

Even a year later, he’s learning how to deal with Mitch’s gift, ability, super power, or whatever it is. He doesn’t shy away from it, and he asks about his visions, and he’s not scared of it anymore. He thinks that if there’s anyone in the world who could be trusted with knowledge of the future, it’s Mitch. But it’s still foreign to him to have Mitch kiss him a little harder one morning and then for him to leave late in the game with a concussion. It’s still confusing when he sees Mitch zone in on some small detail that Auston never would have noticed, and trying to figure out what Mitch is relating it back or even forward to. It’s—something that in his wildest dreams he never would have been able to anticipate, but in the end—

It’s Mitch.

It’s Mitch, who makes him laugh, and who turns his stomach in the best way, and who cries at the end of Jurassic Park, and who always believes in Auston, and who loves life with his entire being, and who makes Auston’s future— _life_ —brighter. It’s Mitch who makes Auston feel happy, and angry, and sad, and scared, and like he can’t breathe from all of those things. And it’s Mitch, who loves Auston back and tells him this every morning and every night and all the times in between. And Auston loves him so, so much.

Auston bends his head down and presses his lips to Mitch’s neck. “I love you.”

“I know,” Mitch grins, turning around. He leaves the group to their own defenses and lets them pass around the notebook. “I definitely saw that coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever feel like a fic deserves like, 50k+ words but you just can’t give it that? I have SO MUCH going on in my head about this verse, but just… don’t have the time or energy to devote to it. It kills me. I love this dearly, but in the end, writing is a hobby and I cannot put it before schooling or my health. If you have any questions about this ‘verse though, I PROBABLY have an answer, and if I don’t, I’d love to think on it. 
> 
> This epilogue was important to me because Auston still blames himself a lot. There are mistakes you make in life that looking back on them seem SO stupid, but at the time, they weren't. At the time, you reacted how you felt you should, and you should not be ashamed of that. I'm still learning this, and Auston still is, too, and he's not going to get over it soon. But Mitch is always going to remind him that they both made mistakes and they got through it and that's really all he cares about.
> 
> So, HOW did this fic get started, you ask? On AskReddit there was a thread: “What’s your go-to clean joke?” And I saw the small medium at large joke and I was like “wow that’s totally Auston @ Mitch” and then wrote a fic about it. Okay, well like, I wrote a fic where I could use the line. Not about it. 
> 
> On his visions: they've always been with him, longer than he actually remembers, but he wasn't actually able to figure it out until he was old enough to like, piece them together. And then he's like "WOW I totally already saw that!" and "WOW I saw my mom making chocolate chip pancakes two nights ago!" and "OH NO please don't let me get hurt!" 
> 
> His visions, as stated before, form like memories. It's-- the way I'd describe it is like, he's already seen it happen and he's thinking about the memory of it? Though they come to him randomly unless he prompts them, so he doesn't actually have to be thinking about it, of course. Sometimes certain words/stimulus/things will trigger certain visions (ex: Auston grabbing his hand and prompting the epilogue vision, Auston chasing him around the ice and prompting the vision that causes him to trip and fall, etc), but in general it's all pretty random. He's like, good with that. 
> 
> His mom started writing them down because she wanted to see how accurate he was. Mitch continued to write them down because he's scared to forget something and scared to miss something. (And he still wants there to be a reason he has this power. While Auston sees it as a power to help people, it really is just... a power he has. He thankfully chooses to use it in a positive way.) 
> 
> Marty does, over time, learn to love Auston again and accept him with Mitch. The first several months/year/two years he is extremely protective and ready to fight but then Mitch sees a vision of something he didn't want to see and Marty wants to help him but Auston gets there first and Auston is so good with him and Marty can tell Mitch trusts Auston so much, more than Mitch trusts Marty, and is more comfortable with him than Marty. After that, he starts making an effort, because whatever happened between the two of them happened in the past and despite how protective of Mitch he is, he doesn't need to protect him from Auston. If the time ever arises that he does, he will, but he doesn't need to stay on guard with his hackles up anymore. 
> 
> There's more on the visions and this entire world that I just logically cannot fit all in this, but if you have any questions about them feel free to ask! This world fascinates me and if I don't have an answer to a question you have I'd love to think up one.

**Author's Note:**

> warnings in order of how they appear (these apply to only chapter 2, which is the bulk of the story):  
> * anxiety, but not quite an attack. definitely signs leading up to one though before the character is talked down.  
> * small mention of an off screen dog death.  
> * one character feels as though his privacy is being invaded and gets—angry. no physicality to it, but lots of yelling and not being v nice.  
> * anxiety attack, minor dissociation, and then another anxiety attack later on. other themes of anxiety and depression throughout.  
> * there is one seizure in this. it’s written to be very similar to a PNES, though i don’t know if that’s the right way to “classify” it, as it is a one time occurrence. it is not described—simply the anxiety and dissociation that come prior, and then a brief talk of an aura. there is also brief, short term memory loss lasting less than 18 hours. it is then mentioned afterwards, not in detail. just that he did, in fact, have a seizure.  
> * brief hospital stay/trip. mention of an IV, but like VERY BRIEF, in passing.  
> * mentions of death in brief passing—one that will happen, and vague others.  
> * let me know if i need to tag anything else. when in doubt, i warn about it, but I might have missed something. 
> 
>    
> This is going to be split up into the typical three parts: prologue, story, epilogue. I personally like how it reads as chapters, better? And hopefully it’ll give me motivation to edit a lil more (while you read this, I’m going to be reading the next to parts and fixing where I messed up, or trying to). Everything is completed, it just needs to be posted. I think I’ll likely post the story two days from now (so that would be Saturday night/Sunday morning EST), and the epilogue either the day after, or two days following (depending on how confident I feel on the editing). 
> 
> I'm going to go into this more at the end, but Mitch's visions are-- weird. They're not just his future. If you know what chronovision is, it's kind of like that-- he can see pieces of time at certain places, and it's not always where he is. Usually is, but not always. He cannot see the past and present though. Hopefully this helps a lil for the next chapter. 
> 
> Random note that I found interesting that doesn't really fit anywhere else: the word fuck or any variation of it is used 111 times in this fic. Fuck. :(


End file.
